The Arena
by DeeMG
Summary: Stripped of his weapons, his family, and even his very name, one Turtle fights for the safety of everyone he loves. Mirage-verse
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

"_Look at that, Rak! LOOK AT THAT! The crowd is ON THEIR FEET!!"_

_"It's the beginning of the end for our champion, Zev! With a wound in his femoral artery he won't last long – BUT LOOK AT HIM GO! Even dying, he managed to take out four of the Riders he faces in what is turning out to be the last fight for our champion. What strength! What sportsmanship! What an inspiration to all of his fans, even as he falls - "_

_"Speaking of falls, Rak, we can't let this moment go by without a word from our sponsor, the Royal Aerial Theme Park and Entertainment Extravaganza - "_

Tedha turned off the recording and dropped his head into his hands with a groan. In the cycle since the game was broadcast, the news had not gotten any better. His carefully nurtured and trained champion, handpicked and rigorously groomed for maximum public appeal, was dead. It was an appalling reversal of fortune – the champion had only just become popular enough to justify the outlay of cash required for proper merchandising. With his death, though, the souvenirs and themed merchandise that had arrived in the warehouse just that morning were useless. No one would buy cups and banners with the image of a dead fighter!

"What am I going to do now?" he grumbled.

"First thing you do is straighten up and sit like a real warrior," someone snapped from the doorway.

Tedha dropped his hands and slumped backwards in his chair. "Hello, mother," he said, in a tone that verged on insolent. It was dangerous to show anything other than perfect respect to the head of the household, but he knew how far he could push the boundaries.

She glided into the room, perfectly graceful and composed as always, and sat in the chair opposite his. Even seated, she loomed over him.

Tedha often wondered what it would be like to watch a female Triceraton like his mother in the Arena. It would be blasphemy to speculate about it out loud, of course – females were rare and powerful, always in control of the lives of their smaller male offspring. But it was diverting to imagine his mother facing, say, a platoon of Riders from Zeta-Prime. He had no doubt she would win. She might even live through it.

She regarded him in silence. He wanted to squirm away from her level gaze, and controlled the impulse with an effort. Several of his own clutch-mates had been sent away, given to the army or even directly to the Arena, because she felt they lacked the nerve to be members of her household; Tedha did not want to follow them. He enjoyed his life as the dominant son and namesake of his mother.

Her eyes narrowed in approval of his control, and she settled back more comfortably into her chair. "The body?"

"Disposed of," he sighed. "Fed to the others."

"And are any of them ready? Can they take the lead?"

"No…we have several younglings who look promising, but none old enough to appeal to the adult fans," he keyed up a holographic display on his desk and pointed at the graphs that showed the breakdown, in age and economic strength, of the fans who attended games in the Arena. "Since it's the older fans who spend the most money on souvenirs – "

" – those are the fans we want to attract; yes, I know," she grimaced. "How long will we have to wait for one of the younger ones to mature?"

They fell into a discussion of the relative strengths of the unnamed youngsters who were being trained in the family's facility. It lasted for some time – she sent one of the youngest males to bring them a meal – and at the end they were forced to conclude that it would be at least a year before they could present a new warrior to the Arena.

"We can't afford to wait that long," she stated grimly. "Even if we could enter a new warrior, we have no way to know for sure that he will be a champion. The fans only buy the souvenirs of the champions. We need a sure thing. We need a guaranteed money-maker."

She lapsed into a thoughtful silence. Tedha leaned his head on his hand and keyed up images of the champions he and his predecessors had trained for the Arena, the warriors whose popularity brought money and prestige to his family. He expanded his search and added on images of all the champions for the last generation, even those belonging to other families. After a time, he expanded his search even further, and brought up images of the champions presented by other civilizations – even the most barbarous of cultures could be counted on to have fighters – and then the champions presented by the military…

She sat up so abruptly that he was startled. "Wait, go back to that!"

Tedha moved backward through the images to the one that caught her attention. She studied it raptly. Tedha was uneasy at the fascination in her eyes. "Mother, what –?"

The image was an action shot, taken during a battle in the Arena. Four Triceraton warriors faced off against four smaller foes – it wasn't meant to be a serious battle, but one that made the crowd appreciate the superiority and strength of the Triceraton Empire. The warriors were meant to easily destroy their foes, four small creatures from some barbarous outworld that held no interest even for the bookish Utroms.

The Triceratons, seasoned favorites in the Arena, had accompanying still shots and the proper holographic cards for their fans. The smaller creatures had none – no one expected them to survive the Arena, so no one had picked up the merchandising options on them. But against all odds, and to the amazement of the entire sports community, the Triceratons fell at the hands of their ridiculously small opponents, who then capped off the extraordinary event by escaping from the Arena.

It was a scandal and a mystery. Promoters like Tedha still spoke ruefully of the missed opportunity to make a fortune – a single promotional shot of any one of the creatures would have guaranteed a family's financial security for a year. Every promoter had been wild to sign them up, but they were nowhere to be found. There was talk that they had escaped via secret military machinery, but no one had ever proved it.

The sporting event had overflowed into the world of the political, too, Tedha remembered. "Didn't King Zanramon IV get killed when these creatures escaped?"

She shrugged it off. "Yes, but his mother had many other sons. Zanramon V does just as good a job at ribbon cuttings and Arena events as his clutch-mate ever did." She was absorbed in some internal calculation, and Tedha was very much afraid that he knew what she was thinking.

"Mother," he began uneasily, "you aren't considering – "

"We'll bring them back," she interrupted. "They were undefeated in the Arena – they fought the championship team and won! The crowd will be fascinated."

"The crowd will be hysterical," Tedha said firmly. "These creatures, Mother, they're a gimmick act! We have given champions to the Arena for generations! These, these things – it's a joke. The fans will laugh."

"They'll laugh, but they'll spend their money while they do it. After generations of champions, we can afford to present one gimmick act. And the money they make will keep us all fed, until we can present a new champion." She nodded decisively and stood up. "Get those creatures for us. Talk to your clutch-mate in the military – he is a general, and will be able to tell you how they got away…and how to get them back."

Tedha knew when it was no use to argue with her, and this was one of those times. If he pushed the boundaries once her mind was made up, it could be fatal. "Yes, Mother," he sighed.

**********

In the end, it took far longer than Tedha had hoped to get the assistance of his military clutch-mate. He had almost given up hope, in fact, when he finally got the message that the general wanted to meet with him.

"Did you get them?" Tedha asked eagerly as he stepped into the room.

The general looked uncomfortable. "It was…a partial success. Mother should still be happy." His tone was defensive.

Tedha's heart sank. "How 'partial' was it?"

"We only got one – don't look at me like that! The range on our ship is too short, and the window of opportunity is fairly small. If we are on that miserable planet for more than a few hours, we can't get away for nearly three years. The rotation of that planet and the rotation of the Empire – even allowing for the mobility of the Tri-bases, we can't get close enough to get onto that mudball in anyplace remotely close to where those creatures live…."

"Why didn't you just grab the first ones you saw?"

"Idiot!" the general slammed his fist down on the table. "Didn't you listen to anything I told you while we were setting this up? There are only the four of them on that entire planet! If the whole planet were full of them, we'd send our troops there in a heartbeat, for training and for combat. But there's only the four!"

"Only four?" Tedha had not, in fact, listened to anything his clutch-mate told him, beyond the difficulty and the need for bribes. The idea that the little fighters were so very rare, that there were only the four, set off a glimmer of an idea for a marketing campaign. "A shame that you couldn't get all of them…"

The general grumbled, "If he hadn't been alone, we wouldn't have him. It took four of my troops to capture him. Two of them are dead, and one of them is so wounded that he might as well be. You'd better make some money off the little bastard."

"Oh, I don't think that will be a problem," Tedha breathed.

**********

The little fighter, fitted with a breather and confined to a small cage in the family's training facility, glared murderously at Tedha. Bruises and scrapes from his capture marred the already scarred skin of his arms and legs. The Triceraton grimaced – those tiny injuries would have to be healed before the creature could make his solo debut in the Arena. Appearances were so very important, if he was truly to become a moneymaker for the family.

The shell, too, was nicked. Tedha circled the cage and considered it, and finally decided that all but the worst of the marks could be hidden under a sheen of oil. It was not unheard of, and it would make him harder to hold in a fight.

The fight had to be carefully considered. The opponent had to be formidable, but not so much so that it would make the victory difficult. The more difficult fights could come later, when the crowd was in love with him.

Tedha was finally sure that the crowd would, against all expectations, adore this little creature. In the long stretch of time between arranging the capture and finally having him, Tedha and his mother had reviewed the footage of that one battle many times, and talked to many people about the event. In the end, they came to a startling conclusion – every single Triceraton they knew claimed to have been in the Arena the day the four little warriors from a backwater planet had defeated the current champions. The Arena would have to be twice as big as it was, in order to hold all of the people who claimed to have been there.

What the crowd adored, they would spend money on…or at least, they would spend money on anything that had the right image emblazoned on it.

"He's going to be hard to control," his mother said as she came through the door. It almost sounded like she approved. "Does he have a translator on?"

"No, not yet. I need to think – how will we keep him from doing harm to himself? I've heard that some of these gimmick acts have trouble because the warriors don't want to fight," Tedha couldn't keep the disbelief out of his voice, "and we've been through too much just to have him cut his own throat the first time he's handed an edged weapon."

"Or worse – throw himself on his opponent's weapon. We'll look like fools, if he actually goes into the Arena and then lays down and dies. We'll be lucky to be able to present even gimmick acts for the next ten years!"

Tedha shuddered. If that happened, he had no doubt that he would be the first to feel his mother's wrath. He'd find himself in the Arena with a dull sword in his hand, easy prey for the warm-up acts – his death wouldn't even be heroic or honorable.

"What would control him?" he wondered out loud. "Drugging him is out of the question for now, when he's still new to the Arena; the crowds always sense drug-induced aggression right away, and it won't keep him docile when we handle him…"

"Well, what would control any of our warriors?" his mother asked reasonably. "I know that, eager as they all are to fight, sometimes you have to coax them – what do you tell them?"

"I tell them…oh, that's brilliant!" Tedha could not, of course, think less than highly of his mother's ideas, but this one inspired him. "I tell them that their failures bring shame upon their houses and their females, that their mothers and their female clutch-mates will despise them…surely he has females somewhere!"

"I don't think 'shame' is exactly what we want to convey to him," his mother put in, eyeing the little creature. "I don't want him afraid of shame, I want him afraid of failure and death."

"Exactly! If he dies – by his own hand or by anyone else's – his family's females will be brought to the Arena."

She gasped, and then narrowed her eyes in approval of his strategy. "He doesn't know we can't get back to his planet for years, does he?"

"No," Tedha rumbled in satisfaction. "No one he will come in contact with knows it, except for you and me." It was foolproof. Every male had females somewhere whose lives he valued. It was also simple and easy for a creature, a warrior, to remember in the prelude to battle, when the fear of death was strongest. And best of all, it was a vague threat with a precise outcome – it could be used to ensure his compliance at any number of events when they would want him to appear docile.

"Give him the translator," she commanded. "I want to see his face when you tell him, so we can see if that will be enough to hold him."

The warrior was intelligent enough to remember how to use a translator from that previous capture, and looped the thin wire around his head without argument or instruction. He was also so much more expressive Tedha had realized – the fear and anger when Tedha threatened the unseen females was wonderful to behold.

"The crowds will love him," his mother murmured in approval. "He will be able to hide nothing from them."

Tedha rumbled again in deep satisfaction. The fight was visibly draining out of the warrior. "You understand? If you die before I tell you to, your females will die soon after."

"I understand," he said, his voice much lower than Tedha would have believed from such a small creature.

"Good," Tedha moved the cage back against the wall. "Tomorrow, we begin to prepare you for the Arena. There is much to be done – marketing materials to be assembled, press releases to compose…"

The creature's face twisted. "How can you market me," he shuddered at the idea, "when you don't even know my name?"

Tedha was actually surprised. He widened his eyes at the cage. "Your name? In your world, you have a name?" He waved a hand dismissively, a gesture that owed much to his mother. "No matter – in this world, you don't have a name. Why give names to warriors in the Arena? They die so quickly that the crowds can barely learn them." It was half-true; the crowds typically chose their own nicknames for their favorites. But the warriors who died in the Arena before they could reach that status did so without any names to be remembered.

The creature stared wordlessly after Tedha and his mother as they left him alone.


	2. Chapter 2

Er, hi. I'm still learning how to make work, so please bear with me. I write almost exclusively in the Mirage-verse (so far) and stay within that continuity unless otherwise noted.

----------------------

**Chapter 2**

From the upstairs hall of the farmhouse, Raphael could make out the glow that meant someone had left the kitchen light on again. He made his way down the stairs, avoiding the half-dozen creaky spots without much effort, intent on an illicit "midnight snack" to justify the trip downstairs to switch off the light…only to come up short when he stepped into the kitchen. "Thought you were in bed."

Leo didn't look up from the patterns he was tracing on the worn farmhouse table with one wet finger. His head rested on his folded left arm. "Couldn't sleep."

"Hm." It was a common problem for the entire household. Raph debated it for a minute, then came to a decision. "I'm gonna have a beer – you want one?" he offered, in spite of his belief that he already knew the answer. "It'll help ya sleep."

Leo surprised him by shrugging the offer aside, without a lecture.

Raphael settled across the table with one of Casey's 'forgotten' beer bottles in his hand. It wasn't the first time he'd gotten into the stash. It probably wouldn't be the last, either – to Raph's way of thinking, it was probably best that he trim the stock back a bit, in case Casey decided to go off on a binge like the one that marked that summer everything fell apart. _Crap, was that two years ago already?_

The phone rang.

"Prolly another damn telemarketer," Raph grumbled. He didn't make a move to answer it. "They never give up, do they? Callin' at all hours…"

Leo didn't move, either. "Let 'em talk to the machine," he mumbled into his folded arms. "Maybe they'll learn…"

Two rings.

"Think it'll wake Mike up?"

"Nah," Raph sounded more confident than he felt – it was hard to know how lightly Mike slept these days.

Three rings.

"Splinter?"

"He's not asleep, and you know it."

"True…" Their sensei had never seemed like he needed much sleep before, and since October, he seemed to not sleep at all. Even as Leo asked the question, they both heard the soft, almost imperceptible sound of his step on the worn boards of his room, directly overhead. If they hadn't known what to listen for, the sound would've gone unnoticed in the November wind.

Four rings.

"Finally…" Leo sighed and straightened in his chair. "The machine can take it from here."

The old answering machine whirred and clicked.

"Guys! Are you there?! Pick up! Oh, please, pick up the phone – " April's voice shouted into the tinny speaker, panic uppermost in her tone.

Leo shot up out of his chair so fast that it almost didn't fall over. He scooped the handset off the wall, cutting her off in mid-cry. "April! Are you okay?"

Raph came to his feet. If something had happened back in New York…his palm brushed against the sai he still wore on his right hip.

A full five seconds of silence. Leo said uncertainly, "April – ?"

"Where the hell have you been?!" she shouted, loud enough for Raphael to hear her clearly from the handset, even at that distance. "I've been calling all day – !'

Leo flinched. "We were out in…yes…okay…April…" He finally gave up and simply held the phone away from his ear. Her angry, frightened, tear-warped voice poured out of the handset without seeming to pause for breath.

Raph crept across the room to listen more closely. Even from ten feet away her fury and terror was clear.

"I've been worried sick about all of you, and you don't even think to pick up the phone and call me back! I've left a dozen messages – don't ninja know how to check the damn machine?! You can break any security system in the world but you can't figure out how to push the frickin' button that says, 'Play all'? I almost sent Casey out there tonight, right this minute – I swear to God, if you hadn't answered the phone right now, I'd be coming with him – "

"No, that's – " Leo tried again. She rolled over him, her pent-up worry crashing over him remorselessly as she went on. After trying, and failing, to break into through her rage for the fifth time, he shrugged and surrendered to the fearful rant. "Yes…yes, April. Yes. The message light's on. I'm sorry, _oneesan_, you're right. We should have checked…"

Raph took one long pull off his beer bottle to disguise his surprise – for Leo to call her 'big sister' was a sign how much her upset was wearing on him. He went back to the table to see how it would all play out.

Leo took a deep breath and rubbed at his forehead as he was finally allowed to say his goodbyes to April, interspersed with multiple assurances that they were as fine as they had been the last time she called, and that they would, from now on, check the messages every day without fail. He settled the phone gently back into its cradle, then swore softly and fluently in both English and Japanese.

"Impressive," Raph saluted his brother with the beer bottle. "I'm glad _you_ picked up the phone."

"She's really upset," Leo paced back to the table, pausing to right his overturned chair.

"No shit – I could hear her rippin' a strip offa you from clear over here!"

"She was afraid something had happened to us."

"Well…damn it." He did not add, _something __**did**__ happen to us. _ He didn't need to. It was as clear as the sleepless circles forming under his brother's eyes.

The wind picked up outside, adding its own mournful note to the gloom that settled over the kitchen. Raph finally drained the last of his beer and stood up, stretching. "I'm goin' to bed – " when a hoarse scream from one bedroom cut him off.

They were both at the top of the stairs in three heartbeats. The sound stopped abruptly. "Mike?!"

His door was already open. Michelangelo sat in his bed, eyes wide, both hands pressed over his mouth. Splinter stood by the bed, one hand on their brother's shoulder.

Mike's eyes shifted from his brothers, hanging in the doorway, to their father, without changing the expression of arrested horror one iota. Slowly, he lowered his hands. His jaw was clamped so firmly shut that the muscles were visible even in the half-light. He shook his head, not in negation of Splinter's question but instead to clear his mind of something that lingered there, behind the tight control. The frozen expression of horror softened.

Without warning, he bolted from his bed and down the hall into the bathroom.

Raph winced at the sounds that came through the doorway. "That's new…"

Splinter sat on the edge of the bed, and sighed. "I am afraid…we must return to our training, in the morning," he said with palpable reluctance.

"No!" Neither of them could say who had said it first, or loudest. Then, "Sensei, please," Leo pleaded. "There's still a chance – "

"We haven't looked everywhere – "

" – something we haven't found yet, something small – "

" – gotta be someplace we haven't thought of yet – "

Splinter only had to look at them with his weary eyes to stop their protests. Everything they asked, he had already thought of, a hundred or a thousand times before, and still came to the same conclusion. All of the sleepless nights since that October day showed in his face; all of the fear and worry and crushing uncertainty that they felt was mirrored in his expression. They faltered and fell silent, and Splinter spoke into the stillness. "We have done all that we can do. It has been more than a month, and there is no sign – we have been through those woods in more ways, and more times, than I can even count. If I believed for an instant that we had left some path unsearched – ! But there is nothing for us to find. Even the most skilled ninja cannot pick up a trail that doesn't exist."

"Splinter…" Leo began again, in pure reflex, before falling helplessly quiet again.

It was true. For weeks, every daylight hour was spent in the woods, looking for the slightest sign. They'd combed every inch of rural Northampton. And for all their diligence, they found…nothing. It was time to consider that there might be nothing to find.

"This can't be right," Raph murmured, stunned at the feeling of helplessness. "This can't be…" _how it ends._

Mike sidled back into the room, sheepish and pale. "…sorry…" He perched carefully on the end of his bed, just out of Splinter's reach, hunched in on himself and miserable. He didn't protest, as his brothers had, when Splinter repeated the quiet assertion that it was time to give up the search and go back to their routine. He only sighed resignation.

"My son, are you alright?" The Master's hand twitched in the space Mike left between them.

"You're right…we're not gonna find anything now," Mike said dully. "Even if there was something to find, it's gonna be covered by morning. Listen to it…"

For the first time, Raphael realized that the wind had died down, leaving a soft, implacable hiss in its place. He groaned. "Snow! Damn it…!"

"It's over…" Leo whispered. He rubbed at his forehead again, then turned away abruptly. "I'm going to bed." His door closed firmly behind his retreating back, cutting off any hint of continued hope.

Raph turned from the closed door to the equally closed expressions of his father and remaining brother, and found nothing to ease his sense of being completely adrift and alone.

**********

Morning practice was both too soon, and too slow, to arrive. Raph lay awake all night, rarely falling into a restless doze before waking up again to stare into the darkness; it was almost a relief to hear the sounds of Splinter and Leo stirring in their rooms. He yawned and stretched and tried to put aside the thoughts that crowded his mind – it was time for practice.

For their first morning of training in more than a month, Splinter selected the _taijutsu _– unarmed combat – discipline. Because they were unevenly numbered, Splinter took the floor and sparred with his sons in some rounds. In others, he paired two of them against the third, randomly switching out the "target" in the middle of a match – suddenly turning ally into foe, or foe into ally.

It was his right, as their sensei, to direct the training sessions to whichever of the 19 disciplines he felt most necessary at the time, and Raphael had never…well, rarely…this year, at least…questioned why the Master made his particular choices. This time, though, he was sure he understood exactly why they were kept away from their weapons: a thin but perceptible undercurrent of anger permeated the whole session. And while he was sure he could've handled one or both of his brothers in armed sparring, angry fighters tended to be unpredictable. As Raph himself had reason to know, he reflected ruefully.

Mike was, in many ways, the most well-balanced of them, physically and emotionally. He was capable of keeping his unique, sunny perspective in spite of all the things that life threw at him on either of those fronts, except for some very rare occasions. This was proving to be one of those occasions. The slight tilt to his head, the unaccustomed narrowing of the eyes, the particular violence with which he executed each of his moves…it all spoke volumes to Raphael. Michelangelo was quietly, thoroughly, obviously furious.

As they sparred, Splinter would randomly call out the type of moves he wanted to see them use. "_Shimewaza!_" he called, and Mike's arm would suddenly snake around Raph's throat, deadly-tight and choking. Or Splinter would call, "_Nage!_" and Mike, who had been struggling to apply another choke-hold to Leonardo, would abruptly reverse course and instead throw his brother to the ground, hard.

It was bad enough to see Mike edging toward a complete and utter breakdown of control like that. Worse was the knowledge that his anger was starting to infect Leo. The "older" brother had been silent all morning, saying nothing that wasn't necessary to practice. This wasn't completely unusual; Leo was more focused on his training than the rest of them. But there was an odd cast to his silence. It felt, to Raphael, like his brother was deliberately refraining from saying something. It was as ominous as Mike's sudden fury.

In the face of his brothers' descent into rage, and the equally inexplicable sense that Sensei was urging them on, Raphael surprised himself by maintaining his own equilibrium. They were pissing him off, true – there was no call for Leo to jab so hard when Splinter called for _koshijutsu_ – but for some reason, the fact of their growing rage kept him from needing to indulge in it himself.

He broke away from the session, temporarily relieved of the burden to be the _uki_ – the target of his brothers' attacks – to buy himself a little time and space in which to think. They didn't seem to notice that he was gone, and that scared him. Mike and Leo were so focused on what they were doing that his absence went unnoticed, and that was the kind of oversight that could be deadly if it happened in a real fight. "Sensei!" he called hoarsely, hardly knowing what he was going to say – it wasn't his right, as the student, to question the lesson, especially while the lesson was going on!

Splinter turned, and leveled a fierce gaze on him. "Return to the floor!" he said in a voice that Raphael had never heard before.

He couldn't have obeyed even if he wanted to. It was too much. He froze, torn between the bone-deep conditioning of obedience to his master, and the equally strong sense that the entire training session was tainted in some way.

And in his hesitation, something shifted behind Splinter's eyes.

The Master stood straighter, anger flickering over his features. "Raphael…"

_Aw, shit, I'm in for it now…_

Splinter blinked.

Raphael did as well, in surprise.

Then the Rat's features closed down into something that wasn't quite his accustomed calm. A hint of anguish ran across his face and was gone. "Stop!" he called to the two who were still locked in combat.

Leo shoved Mike away and the two stood there, glaring at each other, sweat pouring off of them only a little more tangibly than their anger.

"Practice is over for the day," Splinter announced. "Go back to the house. Stay there, and attend to your other duties. We will…start over again, tomorrow."

"I'm going out into the woods – " Mike began.

"You will not!" anger still fired Splinter's words. "You will do as I say. Go to the house. Spend the rest of the day tending to things that _do not_ take you out of the house." The glare he leveled on Mike was scorching.

It almost wasn't enough. Michelangelo wavered, muscles tightening – the thought of disobedience actually visible in his stance. He bared his teeth…and bowed shortly. "_Hai,_ Sensei." The bow was brief enough to be rude, but it was acquiescence all the same.

Splinter turned away. Raph waited long enough to make sure that his brothers were really leaving the barn, then high-tailed it out of there himself. They didn't speak on the short, chilly walk from the barn to the back door, and they didn't look at each other.

**********

Leo's door was closed when Raphael got out of the shower. He shivered briefly as he walked past it, still damp, and headed downstairs to forage for something to eat. For the past several weeks, meals had been little more than sandwiches or hastily-warmed soup grabbed in between forays into the forest, and he was almost ashamed to admit that he was looking forward to something more substantial, even if he had to cook it himself.

He was deeply engrossed in evaluating his options – which weren't extensive, given his cooking skills – when something tickled at the back of his mind. _Something's wrong…_

Raph closed the pantry door and stood silently for a minute, evaluating it. There was something…different…about the air suddenly. It wasn't anything he could define, beyond a nagging in his subconscious that something had changed.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. _What's going on?_

The house was quiet. As he concentrated on the sense of wrongness, little noises began to surface under the silence: the cranky whine of the pipes, the squeal of the loose shutter on the attic window, the hiss and crackle of the wood-fired stove that kept the house supplied with hot water…the tiny _hiss-thip_ of an upstairs window being carefully closed.

"Mike?" he headed up to his brother's room. Raph felt the subtle drop in temperature as cold air swirled past him on its way down the stairs. He knocked on the closed door. "Mike? You in there?" _He wouldn't disobey Master Splinter, that's not his style…_

No answer.

Raph frowned. He knew, suddenly, exactly what was wrong.

Leo's door opened. "Is he gone?" he asked quietly.

"Think so," Raph twisted the knob, half-expecting it to be locked, but it opened easily. Mike's room was dark, and cold. More important, it was empty. "Crap!"

"C'mon," Leo tossed him a hooded poncho. "Let's go get him."

Following Mike's trail wasn't normally an easy thing – he took an almost fiendish delight in confusing potential pursuers, especially when those pursuers were his own brothers – but they didn't really even need to try this time. His trail in the fresh-fallen snow was so obvious that Shadow could've found and followed it.

Besides, they knew where he was going. Mike was headed to the last place that anyone had seen Donatello.

Raph pulled the edges of the winter poncho tighter around himself while he ground his teeth. Every day for more than a month, they'd all come out here. Every day, they all looked around, hoping against hope that, just once, they'd find something they overlooked every other time. Every day, they searched a wider and wider swath of the area around Northampton.

And every day, they came up empty. Donatello walked into the woods one October afternoon – following the very same trail his brothers walked now, in the November snow – and he never came out again.

He understood Mike's frustration with Splinter's order to give up the search. Hell, they were all frustrated! Splinter was probably feeling it more than the rest of them. But…there really wasn't anything to find. They'd been as thorough as trained ninja could be: they searched all of the usual places – all the spots that Don liked to go to have time to himself, all the places that the four of them hung out in when they had free time, and all of the places they could think of that didn't fit either one of those categories. For all their pains, they only found old traces of other events that took place over the summer. Of Don, and his afternoon walk in the October sunshine, they found nothing.

Leo's breath hissed audibly in the cold air, startling Raph out of his memories. His brother was grinding his teeth, anger simmering just below the surface – it was unexpected. It was wrong. _Nothing about this has been right,_ Raph thought. Out loud, he said only, "Hey, it's gonna be okay. We'll find 'im, we'll give 'im hell, we'll all be back to the house 'fore Sensei even knows we're gone."

"Sensei?" Leo made a noise that was probably meant to be a laugh, if it hadn't been so bitterly angry. "It's not Sensei that's gonna take Mike's shell off for this."

"Hang on," Raph grabbed Leo's arm and brought them both to a halt in the snow. "What's that mean? Mike's a big boy, Leo, he can go out in the woods if he feels – "

"That's what Don thought, too, isn't it?" Leo hissed. "And look how well that worked out for us…for him."

"Leo…"

"Let's go get Mike," Leo pulled himself free with a short, angry gesture that spoke of his fear, "before we lose another brother in the woods."

Raph watched him go. "This ain't a horror movie," he said out loud…but quietly. It might not be a movie, but there was a definite sense of Something Wrong all around him, and it made him uneasy. When Leo was almost out of sight, the uneasiness grew to the point that Raph broke into a run to catch up – _just in case,_ he told himself, _it's not like I really think anything's gonna snatch him… _But he breathed a little easier when Leo was in arm's reach again.

They found Mike in the clearing, right where they expected to find him. Well, not exactly where they expected – he was on his knees in the snow, looking blankly at the trees directly in front of him. He didn't turn when they slogged into the clearing, though they made so much noise that he had to know they were there.

He didn't react, either, when Leo started chewing him out. In fact, he was so non-responsive that it short-circuited the lecture – which was shaping up to be a doozy, Raph had to admit; Leo must've been stewing for days on some of the things he was gonna say the next time one of them did something stupid – and got both of his brothers down on their knees in the snow in front of him, where they could see his face.

His miserable, haggard, wet face…

Leo sighed, anger leaking out of him. "Let's get back to the house, and get warmed up," he said finally, in a voice that was more normal than the one he'd used up to that point.

Mike said nothing. He let them haul him up out of the snow without a word. He even let them wrap him in both ponchos – he'd come out of the house with nothing, not even his belt – and guide him back to the house, one on either side of him.

He went on saying nothing, maintaining his uncharacteristic silence, even when Splinter met them at the back door. The silence was so worrisome that they were apparently to be spared punishment for disobeying, though Raph thought privately that the warming tea Splinter brewed for them was made extra-medicine-y on purpose in place of an actual punishment.

He sat on the counter and drank from the oversized mug while he watched his family. Splinter draped a blanket over Mike's shoulders and encouraged him to drink the tea while it was still hot: "It will only taste worse when it's cold."

Leo hung the two damp ponchos over the old stove to dry, then dropped down across from Mike with his own mug. Raph smothered the urge to laugh at Leo's heroic – and futile – efforts to not make faces at the horrible taste.

Everything fell silent. No one could pretend to be doing anything other than what they were doing: watching Mike. Who went on being eerily quiet, his gaze fixed on the untouched mug in front of him.

Raph drained his own mug, fast, and set it aside. He and Leo traded worried glances. This wasn't something they'd ever seen in their brother before. Even in the darkest days of their first winter at the farm, Mike had at least tried to pretend that he was okay, that he wasn't rattled by the sudden changes in their lives, that almost losing a brother – and actually losing a home – hadn't put a dent in his sunny viewpoint.

Splinter settled into a chair next to the unresponsive Turtle. "Michael…" he said quietly – a name only he ever used, and only rarely.

Mike stirred slightly. His head turned, slowly, until he could meet the Master's eyes. He drew a breath, and said in a near-whisper, "He's dead, then, isn't he?"

No one wanted to answer that, not even Splinter.

The bleak gaze went back to the rapidly-cooling mug. Mike nodded once, slowly, before he said, "He's dead" in a more certain tone. He pushed his chair back – evading Splinter's tentative reach for him as he did so – and stood. "He's dead. Our brother's dead," he said firmly, to no one in particular. "Okay, so…um, I gotta go…" and he gestured vaguely in the direction of the stairs as he moved away from the table.

Raph snagged him as he rushed past, and pulled him firmly backwards into a rough embrace, one arm across his shoulders.

"Raph, let go!" Mike struggled to get free for only a second.

"Shut it," he ordered roughly. "Just – " His voice cracked. He dropped his head, resting it on the upper edge of his brother's carapace, and squeezed his eyes shut.

Mike stopped struggling. He went stone-still for a moment, before he began trembling in Raph's slackened grip. "He's dead," he whispered again, in a voice suddenly thick with pain and wonder and grief. "He's – " He turned in the semi-circle of his brother's arm and laid his head on Raph's shoulder in turn, shaking with silent sobs.

Neither one of them could say when Leo and Splinter came to join them, the circle widening to hold the four of them as they grieved.

**********

"He's ending the matches too quickly."

Tedha looked up from the vid display on his desk. " Mother?"

In the display, a small green warrior faced off against a multi-armed Spasmosaur For a moment, the warrior and the large squid-like creature regarded each other. Then the smaller figure launched itself abruptly. The thin blade in his hand flashed. He evaded the long tentacles by diving for the creature's eyes. When it reflexively closed every eye in its cluster, the warrior was able to use the edge of the massive jaw as a platform to launch himself up and over the domed head of his opponent. He rolled, perilously close to the poisonous tentacles that sought him, and landed on the ground behind. Then, in defiance of all common sense, he simply walked away from his foe without a look backwards.

Two seconds later, it became apparent that he had nothing to fear. The Spasmosaur attempted to turn, and suddenly collapsed, black blood pouring from a wound so finely made in the lightning-fast attack that even the creature itself had not realized it was dead.

"The crowd was impressed. We've sold out of everything, and the merchants at the Arena are clamoring for new items faster than we can get them made. I'll have to keep him out of the Arena until we have more goods available," Tedha was pleased.

His mother was not. "It's another gimmick, and the crowds will tire of it quickly. They pay their money to see a fight, not an execution. The matches need to last longer. This is the sixth match he's been in that ended in less than a minute! Before you send him into the Arena again, you make sure he develops a better sense of drama."


	3. Chapter 3

Oops, I've forgotten to add the usual disclaimer: I don't own the TMNT, I'm making no money off of this story – in fact, I work for the state, and therefore I have no money: please don't sue!

**Chapter 3**

_He was drifting again, pulling away from the shore on a raft he didn't remember making. In the distance, just at the edge of hearing, his brothers' voices – they laughed and talked and sounded utterly sane, normal, safe…but too far away. _

_Drifting…_

_The sun was hot on his skin, and he turned his face up into the warmth, feeling the light through his closed eyes. The motion of the sea was so subtle that he didn't hear waves on the shore. Only the increasingly remote sound of their voices, occupied in their own conversations…the heat sank into him, penetrating skin and muscle almost painfully. _

_It suddenly came to him that he was far too hot and uncomfortable._

_The sea rocked under him, the waves pulling him further away, the voices too distant to make out more than the vague knowledge that they were there. He sluggishly stirred enough to look around, to look for shore – _

_It was gone. _

_A powerful sun beat down on him, blinding him and obliterating all traces of direction. The wind blew from all directions, no direction, and he had no compass to orient with…he had no way to know how to strike out for home. Any direction he chose was likely to be the wrong one. He gasped, clutched at the edges of the raft, and stared around wildly, squinting against the treacherous sunlight. The voices were too far away to even be whispers. _

_The raft bucked under him. A wave crested the fragile, useless edge, spilled across the surface. _

_He was lost. Alone on the open sea, directionless, powerless, exposed and utterly lost. He'd drifted too far away, without even knowing he was moving. He'd been swept away without even realizing it, and it was all his fault…he was alone, alone, alone…_

_He dipped one hand over the side of the raft and brought up a handful of the implacable sea. It dripped, thick and red, through his fingers._

_The sea was made of blood…_

"Ughn," Donatello woke from one nightmare to find that he was still trapped in the other.

Outside the barred door, he heard the unmistakable sounds of someone dying. His stomach turned – in the time he'd spent in the Arena (and how long _had_ he been there, he wondered briefly, before giving it up as a useless thought; Triceraton days weren't the same as days back home) he hadn't been able to get used to that. He rolled off the narrow shelf that served as a bed, and made his way to the door of his cell.

A Saurosan lay wounded in the common area that that served as a training hall and staging area for all the Arena's combatants. The broken lengths of several spears could still be seen, heaving in and out of sight among the shifting folds of skin, as the creature fought for a few more minutes of life. Beside it, a Glyson lay dead, flesh already liquefying from the poison the Saurosan injected into him during their combat.

"Bad form, to have both combatants die," Trell rumbled from outside the door. He shook his head. "Can't imagine what their management was thinking – they were too well-matched for it to go any other way."

Don ignored him. He focused on the dying Saurosan, willing it to make some kind of end before Trell or another one of the Triceratons could decide to use the dying creature as some kind of training exercise. He refused to look away, even when the thick flesh began to shudder in what was unmistakably – and mercifully – death-spasms.

There wasn't much he could do for the other beings who were trapped in the Arena with him, except to make their deaths as fast and painless as possible when they faced him. When their deaths came some other way, the only thing he could give them was his respect and attention as they bled out their lives.

Trell was amused. "C'mon! That thing doesn't care if you respect it – if it'd been you in the Arena today, you'd be the one slithering into the drains right now, and don't you forget it!"

He hadn't forgotten. Unbidden, his mind gave him three ways he could've killed the Saurosan himself – one of which would actually have been painless for it – and he filed the knowledge away, in case he faced another one someday.

"If you're up, you might as well make yourself useful," Trell unlocked the door of Don's cell. "Occe's sent for someone to get the poison sacs out of that hairy monster. After they're done, you can help them haul it off."

Don shuddered. The Triceratons were ruthlessly practical with the bodies of the Arena's dead combatants, he knew.

Trell wandered off, leaving Don unsupervised. As everyone knew, it was perfectly safe to leave him unguarded. No chains or locks were required to keep him in place, and no whips or restraints were necessary to get him to go out into the Arena to fight in his turn. His cell was locked only when he slept, for his own protection – other combatants weren't above attacking each other in the dark places under the Arena, and his captors felt it would be a shame to lose him that way, after all they'd gone through to get him. But he was allowed free run otherwise. He wouldn't make any attempt to escape.

He was bound to the Arena by something far stronger than pain or fear.

In the weeks – cycles? – since his capture, Don had thought long and hard on the agreement he made with the big Triceraton. _If you die before I tell you to, your females will die soon after,_ Tedha had told him. In his fury and outrage that anyone would threaten April and Shadow – and his shock at finding himself a captive in the first place – Don had felt it best to acquiesce. His life wasn't worth the threat of danger to the baby, after all, and the mere idea that April would ever be in Triceraton hands was enough to make him see red.

He wondered, in the rare quiet moments in his new life, if perhaps he'd miscalculated…he had his doubts, now, about the true threat to the woman and the girl. Small doubts, but doubts nonetheless. Would they really have been in danger, if he'd refused to cooperate? If he had tried to escape, and died in the trying of it – or even more unlikely: succeeded – would there really have been a danger to the rest of the family?

_If you die before I tell you to, your females will die soon after_...but how could Triceratons find one human woman, and one human girl, on a planet teeming with humans?

Don wrenched himself away from that line of speculation. He had doubts, yes…but those doubts weren't enough to allow him to risk the lives of his family. It wasn't an experiment he was prepared to make. He simply didn't have enough information to be sure, and until he was certain, he would do whatever he could to keep his family safe.

After all, he reasoned, he'd believed for years that the Triceratons couldn't find Earth, and he'd been proven wrong. Best to be cautious, then, with any other assumptions. Best to wait, and learn, and determine the real threat to them.

Though he'd watched it die, Don couldn't watch as the Saurosan was cut apart for the poison sacs behind its mandibles. Death was one thing, but dismemberment was another. Instead, he watched the training exercises taking place in the Arena itself.

The Arena was rarely quiet for long. In those rare moments – like this one – the Triceraton All-Star team trained their newest members. These were the new-fledged warriors whose skills weren't yet strong enough to warrant showing them off to the crowd. The more seasoned members of the troupe drilled the younglings repeatedly, ruthlessly – turnover among the All-Stars was high, and they couldn't afford to have unprepared fighters when the first-string team inevitably needed new members.

He'd been in the Arena long enough to recognize individual fighting styles among the raw recruits. His practiced eye marked out the ones who were likely to get sent against him, and he scowled. Membership in the All-Stars was a coveted honor among young Triceratons, but it was a lifetime commitment. Those who didn't catch on to their training quickly had to be removed from the team, to make room for others.

Don was currently the most popular method for removing the undesirables from the ranks.

At least half-a-dozen of the newest members wouldn't last out the cycle, he saw instantly. If he was lucky – and if they were luckier – the others would improve quickly. If he only had six to take out, that would make for three fights in twice as many days. But if the others didn't grasp the difficult lessons, and do it fast, he might end up having to fight every day in the next cycle.

He wondered when he'd stopped thinking about the Triceratons as individuals, and started thinking about them as messy interruptions to his days. But that was another thought that could only lead him nowhere, and he squashed it quickly – no point in wasting time thinking about himself.

Occe called him, then, and he went back to help haul the Saurosan away.

"This one goes straight to the incinerator," Occe grunted as he strained to toss the rough ropes over the body. "Nothing here worth eating, not even for the Dead Ones."

Don fought off revulsion. The bodies of the Arena's dead weren't allowed to go to waste – it was expensive to feed the constantly shifting population. Saurosans were apparently too toxic to become edible, and for a fleeting second he envied the creature – Don knew _he_ wouldn't end up in the incinerator when his time finally came. Then he threw that thought aside, too, and leaned into the ropes.

He couldn't die yet. Too much was riding on his continued survival.

Trell had to be recruited to heave the corpse into the incinerator – no one else was tall enough, or had the leverage, to get it over the threshold and into the flames. The Triceraton coughed and waved one big hand in front of his face to dispel the acrid smell that came through the door before it could be closed. Don bit down on the breathing tube that was, by now, as much a part of him as his shell – he didn't want to breathe even the supposedly filtered air that would come through while he was near the incinerator.

He'd almost forgotten what it was to breathe normally, without the tube.

He couldn't remember the last time he spoke.

_The raft fell apart under him. He treaded the bloody water, still holding the tiny spark of hope that he might, somehow, find the shore…_

_Starless night fell over the crimson sea._

Tedha was pleased. That much was obvious from the big Triceraton's stance as he watched the fighters limber up for the day's matches. Two of his own recruits had made it past the initial cycle of training for the All Stars, and two more had been pushed forward in the ranks, and would soon be first-string fighters. It had been a good cycle for him.

"I can't get merchandise to the vendors fast enough," he bragged to Trell. "People are crazy for him – I've had some offers to buy him that almost made Mother consider it."

Trell made polite, obsequious noises. The two Triceratons were cousins, though their stations in life were very different – Tedha had the two syllable-name that meant that he was of ongoing value to his mother, while his cousin bore only one syllable. Trell owed his continued employment, and the name that came with it, to his work on behalf of the family. He could lose both at any moment, and he knew it. Not for the first time, he cursed the Divinity that had saddled him with a stringy, lanky form in a family replete with heavy-muscled hulks like Tedha. Even if Trell had been able to garner his mother's favor, it was unlikely that any other matriarch would look on him as a potential mate.

Not that he was likely to encounter any females of any status, working in the access tunnels of the Arena…

"Would she seriously consider selling him?" Trell asked carefully. There might be an opportunity here! He stifled an urge to cough – something in the damp air was making him wheeze, lately.

Tedha laughed. "Never! She's too good at this – she has the whole narrative planned out already, all the way to the end. We'll make him even more popular, before we're through with him."

"Hm." Neither Triceraton wasted any sentiment on the little fighter from Earth. He was a male, and therefore expendable. At the very least, he would get the satisfaction of knowing that the crowds loved him, in the brief span of time that he would have in their eyes. Most males didn't get that. "Shame you couldn't get more like him."

Tedha looked sideways at Trell. "Yes. A shame." And then he made his excuses and moved off, abruptly.

Trell frowned as he watched his cousin leave. Had he said something wrong? More important, had he said something that would garner the displeasure of either his mother or his aunt? He had to be careful, or he'd end up nameless and unemployed in short order. He wasn't anxious to join the ranks of the nameless military grunts!

"You there! Don't just hold that thing, use it! It's a weapon, not a decoration!" Occe shouted at the fighters clustered in the common area. "Merciful Divinity, it's a wonder any of you lived long enough to get here at all! Don't you have any sense of pride? Can't you remember the glory and honor of your homes?"

Trell waded back into the group, taking up his duties of readying the fighters to be sent out. Behind him, the music of the All-Stars rippled out over the sands, and the crowd roared approval. Some of the fighters were showing signs of distress. His practiced eye noted the ones who could probably be cajoled or threatened into at least the appearance of stoicism, and he weeded the rest out – a certain number of combatants could be permitted to display their cowardice without upsetting the audience. In fact, in the right proportions, and matched against the correct foes and at the correct times, it could even be vastly amusing for the crowd. Occe was a brilliant judge of these situations.

Once things were in motion, the rest of the day's activities fell into place properly. In a brief quiet moment in the flurry of events, Trell spotted the little fighter from Earth, sitting on a ledge overlooking the common area. "Why can't they all be professionals like you?" he asked rhetorically – he knew he'd get no response from the creature. Tedha said he could speak, but Trell had never heard him do so. "Why can't you whip them into shape a little bit, before they get this far?"

The warrior gave him a look that Trell couldn't read – damn these off-worlders and their bizarre facial contortions! – and went back to sharpening the weapons he'd been allotted for the day: short, leaf-bladed _kes_ knives. _Kes_ were easily concealed, easily thrown, and deadly-sharp. A narrow grove down the length of each one could be used to carry poison. For Triceratons, these were little more than toys. In the hands of the Earth-warrior, they looked more deadly.

Of course, everything looked more deadly in his hands, Trell reflected sourly. _Everything_ looked like a weapon in his hands, as though he had instantly appraised it and determined the best way to use it to kill someone. He probably had, too. If the motley assemblage of combatants had been made up of warriors like this one, the Arena would be a far different place. Hells, even one or two more like him would improve the tone immeasurably!

He pondered his cousin's odd response while he chivvied the next pair into place for the Mismatched Fighters round that preceded the usual mid-day break. Trell waited for the right moment to push them out onto the sands – the roar of laughter from the crowd told him that, once again, Occe's sense of theatrics had selected the right pair for the match – then bent double with a sudden cough. He wheezed, standing up. The world tilted a little bit before settling back down. "I've got to get out of these tunnels," he grumbled out loud. "Damned place makes a person sick, if he spends too much time here."

Bodies were brought back and dumped in the common area. Lightly-wounded fighters were bandaged up, if warranted, or sent to join the Dead Ones if their performances hadn't earned them a reprieve; the more severely injured were dispatched and added to the meat pile in the center. Trell had his hands full, dealing with a surviving quintet of Xogian warriors who didn't take well to the idea that their fallen comrades were only good for food. Overhead, the crowds rumbled through the causeways, intent on securing their own meals and – more important – their souvenirs for the day's events.

And then the early main event of the day: the Earth-warrior versus the culled rejects from the All-Stars.

The All-Stars stood on the sands as a group, waiting for the signal that would cause the bulk of the group to melt back and abandon the rejects to their fate. Since Prime Leader Zanramon V wasn't in attendance, there was no one to make a speech highlighting the glories of the All-Stars (and by implication, the failures of the rejected candidates).

The Earth-warrior stood just inside the entrance, waiting for the right moment. Whatever his flaws, whatever his background, he certainly learned quickly – he'd never once blown an entrance during his time in the Arena. Tedha stood beside him, and fidgeted with something in his pocket. Trell frowned – surely the little warrior still had plenty of time in the Arena? The family hadn't yet made all the money it could, even Trell knew that! With the right merchandising, and a lot of luck, he was good for at least several more cycles, and could earn enough money to keep the family financially secure for a long time after that.

Mere seconds before the entrance cue, Tedha moved. An ampoule glittered in his hand as he pressed it quickly into the warrior's arm. The Earth-creature, having grown used to Tedha's presence, didn't realize his danger until the drug in the ampoule was already well-delivered.

"Something to help you develop a sense of the dramatic," Tedha rumbled, pleased with himself.

The warrior blinked, and backed up a step. He brought one _kes_ up.

"Ah-ah! Don't forget the females!" Tedha said in tones of warning.

The creature wavered. The music changed – his cue to enter.

Trell held his breath.

And then, obedient to his training and to whatever threat Tedha held over him, the Earth-warrior left the tunnels and strode out onto the sands. The crowd roared approval.

The fight began.

Trell sidled over to his cousin. "What was that?" he demanded more sharply than was good for him, given his position. "Did you clear it with Occe? It's dangerous to start drugging combatants, and it should be cleared with the Arena Master first!"

Tedha shrugged in magnificent indifference. "Mother's orders," he said simply. Even Occe had no power to influence or even berate a Triceraton who was doing as his mother told him to do; everyone knew that.

Trell ground his teeth in fury. It would be so like Tedha to be unconcerned about the intricacies of arranging and corralling the fighters, both on and off the sands!

In the Arena, things happened very quickly. Everyone knew that. Though people clamored to see the little warrior from Earth – he had a kind of cult-following, both from his own appeal and from the legendary combat, years ago, when he and three others of his kind had destroyed the All-Stars' first string team – even Trell had to admit that he was in danger of staying firmly entrenched as a second-tier attraction. His kills were simply too quick, too clean, to hold the crowd's interest for long. The professionalism that made him easy for Tedha and Occe to handle carried over into the Arena, too, and he simply didn't have the lust for battle that would propel him into the ranks of the first-tier attractions.

Apparently Tedha wasn't satisfied with managing a second-tier property any longer. Whatever drug he'd injected into the little warrior, it was doing amazing things to his blood-lust.

One Triceraton went down, screaming, with a _kes _buried so deep in his thigh that it disappeared; blood sprayed into the air. The Earth-warrior ignored both the blood and the screams as he used the fallen warrior to launch himself at the second. Another _kes _winked in his hand. He seized the warrior's left upper horn as his leap carried him over, and in the seconds before both of them hit the ground, stabbed the Triceraton in the eyes, the blade going down twice in rapid succession.

Two Triceraton warriors lay dying on the sands behind him, as the little warrior simply walked away. Both of the former All-Stars twitched and flailed and screamed. Their killer ignored them. Instead, he walked halfway across the open sand, to stand in front of the All Stars' entrance to the Arena. He stopped. Raised one arm in what was unmistakably a gesture of challenge. Then simply stood there, radiating menace.

The crowd quieted. The only clear sound was the screaming struggles of the two fallen Triceratons. Even Trell held his breath – what was going on?

In the darkness of the All Stars' tunnel, something stirred.

The crowd erupted as two more Triceratons emerged onto the sands, this time carrying long spears.

Their weapons were seized and turned against them by a sudden blur of furious movement. One Triceraton was impaled on the weapon of his companion, while that All Star still held it. He dropped to the sands, gurgling. Before he finished dying, the other warrior collapsed beside him, another _kes_ – previously unseen by the crowd – glinting in his throat.

The little fighter stood still for a moment. The crowd went wild.

And then he yanked the spear out of the body of the dying Triceraton – ignoring the other, more easily-available spear in favor of the one that had to be removed from the shrieking warrior – and made his way back across the sands, to plunge it into the hearts of the first two.

The crowd was on its feet.

He paused. Glanced around the crowded stands.

And then tossed the spear down onto one twitching body in a gesture of pure contempt before making his way off the sands.

"Now we _really_ won't be able to keep the merchants stocked," Tedha said smugly.

_The hope didn't fade right away. Even when the blood-water began to break over his head – even when he got so tired of fighting the waves that he began to think about sliding beneath them – he still felt some hope. They would come for him, he was sure, before the end. After all, they wouldn't want to lose him like this, would they? _

_He couldn't let go until he knew that they knew what happened…_


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

_The blood-waters closed over his head, in spite of his best efforts. He slipped beneath the waves and disappeared._

_To his astonishment, the liquid that filled his lungs didn't kill him. It dragged him under, separated him forever from his family, and snuffed out that tiny spark of hope. It numbed him to the pain and the grief and the fear, and finally, to the astonishment, too._

_Then it cradled him, surrounded him, insulated him from the terrible light of the implacable sun. _

_It made him part of itself. _

_He went deeper into the red-black tides._

He ricocheted around the tiny cell for an interminable time, crazed with the fury that ran in his veins. Outside his view, but too close to his hearing, the crowds roared. He keened, deep in his throat, craving either silence or the validation that the crowd made that noise for him – he didn't know which. Perhaps it was both. In the mind-melt caused by the drug, it made sense that it was both. The rough walls scraped him, scuffed the surface of his shell…anchored him by pain, one fragmentary piece at a time, back in a world where he had some kind of command over his senses. He slapped at the walls, hungry for feeling that wasn't the soul-twisting rage, and kicked at the barred door.

He shivered almost constantly as he circled the room.

Impossible to know how long it lasted. His only time-keeper was the sounds made by the crowds as they filled the stands, thinned during the rare off-times, and filled the stands again. Other beings looked through the barred doors, and he snarled at them as he stalked around the perimeter of the room.

Time slowed. He slowed with it. The walls began to look less like foes to be beaten.

He was so very tired, quite suddenly. He sat, heavily, in one corner where he could watch the door, and rested his heavy head on his folded arms_. So heavy 'cause the brain is turning to lead,_ he thought briefly, and then winced. Even thinking was painful.

So he stopped thinking.

The world began to settle into familiar shapes and circumstances. He could have put words to them, if he wanted more pain, but he didn't. Fog filled his mind. He let it.

He hurt all over.

He fell into a doze that further scrambled his sense of time, only to jerk himself awake when the door to his cell creaked open. A large being – _Triceraton,_ his mind supplied, _non-combatant, non-hostile_ – stepped through the door. His heart raced anyway, adrenalin spiking through him. He slid up the wall, heavy with exhaustion and after-effects.

"Damn fool," the Triceraton rumbled. "He'll ruin a sure-fire moneymaker, trying to grab some glory." It carried bowls of food and water, which it set down on the shelf. "You need to eat something – it'll help with the shakes."

He was still shaking, wasn't he? It had been going on for so long that he'd almost forgotten it.

The Triceraton coughed, a deep and hollow sound that made him jump. "Damned tunnels," it swore without any heat as it left. The door locked again.

After a long while, he felt safe to creep over to the bench and seize the bowls. Then he crept back to his corner with them. There had once been a reason to not want to eat, hadn't there? He couldn't remember it. He had to eat.

He emptied both bowls, then collapsed.

"Perfect!"

Tedha preened before his mother's praise. "It did go well, didn't it?"

She narrowed her eyes in approval. "The timing was excellent. And the merchandise was exactly what we needed – we can't keep anything in stock, and we've already made enough to make up for expenses. Everything from here on out is pure profit."

"I already have some ideas for the next rounds –"

"No," she held up a hand. "Don't vary the plan. This narrative, this story we're telling with him, will secure our finances for the next decade. Our family will be one of the most prestigious in the business. This is the chance we've been wanting for generations."

Tedha fell silent. His mother's word was law.

"Go make sure he's ready." She dismissed him, her mind obviously on other things.

He tried not to get his hopes up as he made his way back to the Arena. There were still so many things that could go wrong! But if things worked out the way his mother intended, then the future looked very bright indeed. He might even secure mating privileges with a matriarch – a thought that made him laugh out loud. He, the father of another generation! Perhaps he'd even be able to sire a daughter or two, to firmly cement his role in the genetic future.

Yes, things were suddenly looking very good for his household.

Things weren't looking so good for Trell, he noticed when he arrived back in the tunnels. His cousin looked ill. Well, more ill than usual; Trell had never been a particularly robust example of Triceraton. Tedha made a mental note to ask his mother to speak to her sister about it; perhaps it was time for another one of his cousins to step into the role.

"He's asleep," Trell said hollowly. "Took almost half a day to wear off – perhaps a smaller dose would be better, next time?"

Tedha shook his head. "Did you see the way the crowd reacted? It couldn't have been better! No, the dosage stays the same. Next time, the opponents will be more of a challenge, to make up for it."

"Occe thinks he'll burn out too soon, that way."

"I don't care what Occe says – Mother knows what she's doing," Tedha drew himself up to his full height. "Let me see him."

Occe seethed as they inspected the unconscious fighter. Tedha's arrogance and greed were only going to ruin the best solo act in the Arena in the last year, and there wasn't a thing the Arena Master could do about it.

"He needs to be ready for a fight tomorrow," Tedha frowned as they sealed the door on the sleeper.

"Shoulda thought of that before you drugged him," Occe said sourly – on top of everything else, the drugs meant that he'd lost one of his most reliable workers, and combined to increase his irritation about the handling of one of the few professional warriors to enter his sphere. His position was secure enough that he didn't worry about incurring Tedha's wrath – his own mother and sister outranked even Tedha's, and had ties to the Prime Leader's family; he had no need to be obsequious. "Nothing good ever comes of drugging the fighters, even if the crowds don't ever find out."

Tedha ignored him. There was still too much to do to get ready for the fight. "He's going in the evening rounds tomorrow," he said firmly. "Prime-time. No more second-string fights. Tomorrow, he goes up against one of the best."

He woke up with a massive headache. For a moment, he couldn't remember where he was. Then a faint memory came to the surface: _'All right, you sorry Saurians – we're short on cells, so you all get to cram into this one!' 'Look at this jerk, brothers – big, slow, and clumsy!'_

"No, Mike – they've got guns!" he said aloud from, and to, the memory. Then he shook his head – how had that come up? He'd worked so hard to suppress all memories from his life before the Arena!

"This is my life now," he told himself through gritted teeth. "This is all there is, and all there will ever be."

He shook with the realization.

_I will die here. _

It hurt so much to realize that it was all over. Everything he'd ever known, or loved, or wanted, or hoped – it was all forever out of his reach. And even worse: even the memory of all he'd lost would only serve to weaken him, if he let it.

He stared blankly at the far wall, concentrating on his breathing. _Time to cut it all loose,_ he thought. It was a weak resolution, but as he slipped deeper into a meditative state, it grew stronger.

A memory, then, of a yellow-haired child: _Shadow giggled as she ran from Mike, who chased her around the living room. Shadow ran for shelter behind the legs of her mommy…_ "April," he remembered out loud. The females of his family, the two people who would suffer and die terribly if he failed…he couldn't be allowed to forget them.

He couldn't protect them if he remembered too much about them. "This is all there is, and all there will ever be," he said again. And again, and again, as a whispered chant, until he grew tired of hearing his own graveled voice and left off speaking, again. He allowed himself to remember their faces, faintly, but pushed aside all memory of their names, burying his past and his memories of home – of family – as deep inside himself as he could. He drew a deep breath, then another, and another, sinking deep into his own mind. He did not let himself think about the person who had taught him to do so. There was too much riding on his ability to stop thinking about his loved ones…to stop feeling like there was any hope that he would ever see any of them again.

His meditations took him to a boat, far out to sea. The waves were green, and this was a great relief to him, for reasons he couldn't pause to examine. He imagined a vault, on the deck of this boat, where he locked away all of the memories and hopes and dreams he'd ever held, before he was stolen for the Arena. All of the most important parts of himself – everything that made him who he was, from his scientific curiosity to his liking for hot chocolate; from his memories of growing up under New York through the lazy summer days in Northampton – locked away for safekeeping…and then he threw the safe overboard in his mind.

To seal the deal, he threw even his name overboard with it. _The name is part of a set, the name has meaning…there is no meaning outside of this place, this is all there is and all there ever will be. _His name ripped free with actual, physical pain, then dropped out of sight below the waves. He concentrated on the waves until it stopped trying to come back to the surface.

It took him the rest of a day and night, but when he opened his eyes again, he'd taught himself to forget even his own name.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

"The crowds call you 'Kes"," Tedha said triumphantly. "Imagine it – they love you enough to give you a name. No one has ever been so deadly with those little knives before – this is a great thing!"

The newly-named Kes shrugged and looked away, as unconcerned with his new name as he had been when he was nameless. Tedha let it go – no point in teaching this barbaric out-worlder about the importance of names! If he didn't recognize the honor, then so be it; Tedha at least recognized the marketing opportunity inherent in the name and had taken steps to capitalize on it. Merchandise with the name 'Kes' on it had already been ordered. He'd even paid the extra fees to have the deliveries rushed – his mother would approve, he was sure, once they sold out of the goods – though he'd never done such a thing for any other fighter he'd managed, ever.

A thought struck him, and he made a note to order toy _kes_, for the children. Miniature weaponry was always popular, and moreso when it was associated with a known warrior who had the adoration of the crowd.

"Tonight, you'll go up against a foe worthy of your talents!" Tedha peered out onto the sands – the failed All Star recruits were putting on a better show, now, than they had in cycles! Apparently the removal of the bottom-ranked four had put a real fire into the ones who now found themselves in the lowest spots. If one of them lived through the bout with the Xogians, he might actually get accepted back into the All Stars! It was a thrilling thought, and Tedha spared a moment to be wistful that he didn't have the management of such a youngling – those types, having once escaped certain death, always went on to become crowd favorites. Then he dismissed the thought and focused again on the warrior who was his current hot property. "This is a critical match – this is the one that will make or break your career as a first-ranked warrior!"

Kes glanced at him again with supreme indifference. His hands went to the wide belt, checking and re-checking the sharpness of the edges of the various namesake blades that were tucked there.

Tedha began to get annoyed. "Don't think that you've made your females safe yet!" he threatened.

_That_ worked. Something sparked in Kes' eyes, and he turned a murderous glare in the Triceraton's direction. Air hissed in the breathing tube as he drew deeply, obviously fighting to control the urge to leap at Tedha.

"That's better," he murmured, pleased, and slid another ampoule out of his pocket. "It works better if you're already angry…"

Kes stood rock-still as the drug went into his arm.

Tedha pushed him into the entrance tunnel as the music started to play.

Trell appeared out of the shadows of the tunnels. "That one will take your throat out," he coughed, hard enough to bend himself over with the force of it, before he could continue; the thin Triceraton held onto the tunnel wall for support. "If you keep this up, it's only going to get worse. He won't think twice before he kills you. Hard to enjoy profits when you're dead."

"He won't kill me. He thinks I'll send his females into the Arena if he doesn't obey my every order, precisely," Tedha was still gratified and amazed that the threat had worked so well.

Trell gasped out loud at the blasphemy. "Females? In the Arena?"

"It won't come to that," Tedha said, amused. "He does what he's told, see?"

In the Arena, things began to get very bloody.

Later, Kes screamed his fury into the solid walls of his prison, aching and revolted to the very core of his being. His skin was too contaminated to bear it another second, and he scraped at himself with nails that were already broken down to the quick from attacking the door.

_Can't ever go home again now,_ his mind ran in great looping circles of hysterical thought, _can't go home again, too dirty, too wrong, too lost, can't ever go…_

He screamed until his voice went, as much for the horrors he'd wrought in the Arena as for the realization that, somewhere in the deepest part of him, he'd still believed that he might someday get out of the hell in which he found himself. He screamed for the loss of the hope he hadn't even known he still had, until it was crushed under the weight of the atrocities he'd committed.

When he finally collapsed, it was only to fall into dark dreams of a small girl-child, running across the sands of the Arena while nightmares chased her down.

"We'll re-schedule the matches for another day," Tedha said in great disgust. Kes lay crumpled in a heap on the narrow ledge of his cell, decorated with extensive and bloody streaks from his hysteria as the drug wore off. "It'd be one thing if he'd been wounded in the Arena – the crowds'd love to see him come back in, all bandaged up! But too many people know that he walked out yesterday without a scratch on him." He shook his head ponderously, and cursed under his breath as he stalked out. "Trell! Get some ointment in here, or something."

Trell waited until Kes began to wake, before attempting to deal with the injuries. He'd seen too many attendants get torn up by fighters coming out of a groggy sleep, to risk it for himself. "Wake up," he whispered harshly. "What kind of idiot warrior does more damage to himself than his foes did to him?"

Kes only watched him with blank eyes as the Triceraton spread healing ointment on the deepest of the scratches.

"Listen to me," Trell said urgently as he worked. "Listen to me! You must do something for me. I have something you want. But I want something from you in return." He paused, doubled over again with the heavy, wracking cough that he now knew wasn't ever going to leave him, and tried again. "I'm going to be one of the Dead Ones, very soon. Occe pretends he doesn't see it, but it's true – he'll have to send me down." He shuddered, revolted by the knowledge of his own fate. The Dead Ones were the lowest of the low, in the Arena's hierarchy; they were the beings who were so damaged, inept, sick, or otherwise not worthy of a warrior's end that they were a joke. They were used for target practice by the other warriors, All Stars and combatants alike, and sometimes were given weapons and made to fight each other to the death in huge groups, for the amusement of the crowds. "I am too sick to be sent to the army, now. That Saurosan – even dead, it managed to poison me as it burned. My lungs are rotting. And I need you to help me make a better end than to be one of the Dead Ones!"

He paused to make sure that Kes was listening and Occe was not. Moving made him so dizzy that he couldn't be sure of either one.

"I need you to end it for me, warrior. Before I go down to the Dead Ones…before your next fight in the Arena, you must kill me as you go out onto the sands. Do you hear me? Kill me, and everyone will think it was simply the blood-fury. Kill me quickly – let me die with a name!" He paused, again, to cough wrackingly. Black air filled the edges of his vision as he fought for breath.

Kes went on looking at him with blank, unresponsive eyes. _Damn these off-worlders and their lack of expressions,_ Trell thought, not for the first time.

"And to pay for my death…I have something you want, warrior. I have information that will be valuable to you," he waited to see if the spasm that built in his chest would overwhelm his voice again, and to see if Kes would react in any way. The little fighter didn't move.

He had nothing left to lose, so he spoke anyway. "Your family, your people – they are safe from Tedha. Do you hear me? I know my cousin, and I know my aunt – if they could bring any more like you here, they would. I don't know how they got to you, or why they can't get to the rest of your people, but," another pause for the cough, "if it could be done, they would have already. Your people are safe. Your females are safe."

"Are you finished yet, Trell?" Occe called in tones of irritation. "We've got new combatants coming in tonight, and I need help cleaning up some cells for them."

Trell hissed annoyance, and left without another word. He locked the cell door behind him. _I hope he remembers…_


	6. Chapter 6

Thanks so much to everyone who's been kind enough to follow this story, and leave me a few kind words! I'm still figuring out how much I want to say about my stories here at FF, and I appreciate your continued interest while I work this out.

**Chapter 6**

The delay in between matches actually worked in Tedha's favor. The crowd grew more excited at the idea that Kes wouldn't be fighting as many matches as before, and turned their considerable – and fickle – enthusiasms into many purchases.

Kes healed more quickly than anyone expected. In spite of both of these good things, Occe put his foot down and refused to allow Tedha to continue the same dosage. "You'll burn him out, and that's no good for business," he blustered shrewdly. "Make him last, and you make more money – unless you've already got a replacement lined up?" The Arena Master sounded hopeful that he might soon have more professional-level warriors to deal with, instead of the constantly-rotating crowd of amateurs.

Tedha shook his head. "No, it would be too much trouble to get another one like him right away," he mumbled.

Kes watched the two Triceratons carefully. His hands checked his belt, again and again, for blades that weren't there. He was indifferent to the schedule of the matches, or the money that could be made.

Occe, in turn, watched the little Earth warrior, too. After a minute, he turned away, sighing. "Better make that one last, Tedha," he said in a low voice that dripped with scorn. "You're well on your way to burning that one out, already. Too much drugging, too fast – he's already lost some spark."

The next match was scheduled for the first day of the next cycle. It was a day that the Prime Leader, by long tradition, would open the festivities with a long speech about the glories of the Republic and Triceraton warrior-hood. Rumors swept the Arena that Zanramon V would refuse to attend, however – his clutch-mate had died, after all, as a direct result of the escape of the Earth-creature and his companions, and there was no sense tempting fate.

Tedha's mother laughed grimly when she heard about it. "He'll be there," she told Tedha. "His mother isn't going to let his superstition alter her plans in any way. If he gives her too much fuss about it, she'll remind him that he still has many, many clutch-mates left who can do the same job he does." But she nailed Tedha with a particularly commanding look anyway. "Just be very certain that poor Zanramon doesn't have any excuse to be a coward going forward, eh? It's demoralizing to see the Prime Leader get killed by off-worlders. Don't let our little pet offer any threat to the Prime Leader, and we'll all be better off for it."

Tedha vowed inwardly to follow Occe's recommendation for the dosage of the drug.

_He could see and move, after a fashion, in his new world. The blood-waters grew lighter at times, for no reason he could fully discern or even fully care about. He let the current take him where it would, no longer caring about anything he'd left behind._

_Sometimes, in spite of the depths that separated him from them, he could hear the voices of his brothers calling his name. But that couldn't be right._

_If he had a name, wouldn't he remember it? Wouldn't it resonate in him, like a heart beat?_

_And if he had brothers… if he had brothers, they would surely be in the watery depths with him. Surely his brothers wouldn't have let him sink so far, and so fast, all on his own? So therefore, he must not have any brothers._

_He hardened himself against them – he had no brothers, no name, anymore. _

_The current moved him, mindlessly._

The reduction of the dosage almost killed him.

When the ampoule appeared, he waited, obedient to the need to save the nameless females whose images he could still see, faintly, in his mind. He no longer knew their names, but he knew that they were the reason for all of the pain and grief, and so they must be important. He put up no resistance as Tedha slid the drug deep into the heavy muscle of his left arm, though he was revolted and furious about the Triceraton's mere presence.

He was aware of Trell, lurking conspicuously in the background, and wondered at it briefly – was there something that the thin one wanted? Was there something he needed to do?

And then everything took on the weird and deadly cast that, by now, he associated with the drug.

The walls were living beings that loomed over him. The sand hid implacable foes – or perhaps it _was_ the foe, itself. The stands were full of sharp-toothed demons that could swarm him, like flies, if he lowered his guard. Even the light was too bright, deadly, and possessed of a malevolent will.

For all of the malice around him, everything moved with peculiar slowness. And everything, everything was full of blood. He gazed up at Tedha, suddenly aware of how thin and fragile was the layer of flesh that separated the Triceraton's blood from the open air, and deeply convinced that the blood was calling out to be united with the air, in a great paroxysm of universal feeling – everything was one, everything should be freed and open, and the blood, the blood was trapped inside that loathsome form…

The thin and insubstantial images of the woman and the child swam in front of his eyes, and protected Tedha from sudden death.

Frustrated, he looked for some other target. Surely there was some other being who needed to be released into the one-ness!

His eyes fell on the beings gathered on the sands…and he smiled, satisfied. There, there were skins full of blood! The blood called him. The blood needed to be free. The blood was the real living entity, the blood was trapped in those revolting prisons!

He charged out onto the sands.

He cut down half of the foes before him, leaving them wounded and screaming behind him. Blood leaped into the air, soaked into the sands, splashed over him – it felt like a grateful embrace. He laughed, delighted –

– until something heavy and malevolent and cold tried to stop him. In the slowed time of the drug-awareness, he saw the thing, though he couldn't name it, as it came toward his eyes. Bemused and appalled all at once, he understood that the ugly… thing… was trying to come into his eyes, trying to contact his brain. That didn't seem like a good idea – he couldn't remember, at that moment, what possible use he had for a brain, but he supposed that it must be important, or it wouldn't be behind his eyes…

At the last possible second, the instincts that ran deeper than the drug kicked in, and he jerked himself sideways, to his left. The heavy thing (_It's a spear, a spear, you idiot!_ he shrieked suddenly at his own slow-working mind) struck him at the outer corner of his right eye and slid along his skull like cold lightning. In one horrible moment of clarity, he felt metal scrape along bone.

He spun away, his own blood splashing over him and his opponent.

The crowd gasped.

The blood that poured down the side of his head was hot, but the wound itself was cold, so cold that it hurt. He couldn't hear, suddenly, out of his right ear.

He laughed.

The Glyson, carried by his own momentum, rushed past him in slow motion. Its back was totally exposed – too easy, really. He scooped another spear up off the sands. By the time the Glyson realized the vulnerability, the spear was being driven deep into its chest. Slowly.

While he killed the Glyson who'd marked him, he popped another fallen spear up out of the sand with his foot, braced it against his shell, and impaled the last member of the troop that had faced him, as it raced up on his supposed blind side.

Then he left them there, fallen in the sand, still twitching. He made his way back to the tunnels…

The crowd went berserk.

This time, there was no shrieking hysteria as the drug worked its way out of his system. The little fighter simply collapsed into a restless sleep. Occe cursed, fluently and constantly, as he worked to patch up the injury. "I've put down fighters who were less injured than this," he spat at Tedha.

"Yes, but not when they were so popular," Tedha smiled. "He'll live. And while he recovers enough to fight again, I can sell vids of that fight – people are clamoring for it!" He paused in his consideration of profit margins to look at the work Occe was doing. "It wouldn't have happened, anyway, if you'd let me give him the full dosage."

He beat a hasty retreat at the sound of the Arena Master's growl.

It hadn't been a good day for Occe.

When he emerged from the Earth creature's cell, he found a young Triceraton waiting for him. "What do you want?" he barked, annoyed and frustrated and more than willing to vent both on the hapless youngling.

"P-Please, Arena Master…I'm, I'm Trell," he stammered.

Occe paused. He hadn't expected his new assistant to appear so soon – he'd only sent the former assistant down to the Dead Ones during Kes' fight. He looked the youngling over carefully. Trell was shorter than his sibling had been, but more muscular, and possessed the same keen expression. Occe nodded, satisfied. "Fine, then…let me show you your duties…"


	7. Chapter 7

An incredibly short chapter, the shortest one in the whole story…but necessary. Thanks for all of the interest in the story!

**Chapter 7**

The nightmares never completely went away, though Michaelangelo got better about hiding them. When they were really bad – when he woke up while in the very act of scrambling for his weapons – he crept out of his own room, down the darkened hallway, and into Donatello's room.

Inside, it was almost impossible to believe that his brother wasn't coming back. Unfinished and unnamed projects lay scattered across the desk. An open notebook, pages covered in Don's spiky scrawl, lay on the floor next to the desk. Three separate books were lost in the bed, their pages liberally decorated with bookmarks and more of the untidy handwriting – tracks of Don's thoughts on the subjects inside.

The only concession that anyone had yet made to the idea that Don wouldn't return: the computer was shut down.

Mike sat on the edge of the bed and wrestled with the impulse for a few minutes, before finally giving in to the only thing he could do to stop the nightmares on his own. He slid underneath the heavy pile of quilts and blankets – carefully sliding his legs past the books that were layered in there, too – and pulled the covers up to his ears.

The bed still retained the scent that was purely Don's, after more than two months. Mike tightened the blankets around his shoulders, and tried to pretend that his brother was really there – his usual refuge from nightmares. Though the nightmares before had all been self-created, brought on by too many monster movies or too much late-night reading of Stephen King books…

He stared into the darkness of the room for a long time, pondering the things his brother had left behind. What should they do with it all? The computer was easy: that should go to April. And the weapons were easy enough: they could just absorb those into the stash that belonged to the family. But the rest of it? The things that had really meant something to Don, the books that only he ever enjoyed, the notebooks and the little projects where he tested his various engineering theories – who should take over those things? Who could pick up where he left off? Who could pick up the pieces and do justice to the things and ideas that had once been important to him?

_It's still Donnie's room right now,_ Mike decided again, as he did every time he tried to think about disbursing the assembled "stuff" that had been his brother's. _It still matters to him…_

Yawning hugely, he fell asleep before he could think too much about the question: why would any possessions matter to someone dead?


	8. Chapter 8

Well, to make up for the Shortest Chapter I Ever Wrote – here's the next one already! (Apologies if you get multiple updates – I'm still figuring all of this out.)

**Chapter 8**

Kes was out of the Arena for almost a cycle – long enough that rumors began to spread that he had died of his injury.

"We have to prove to them that you're still the champion," Tedha said firmly, while he watched the little warrior move sluggishly through a series of light stretches. Kes was still pale from the blood-loss, except for the dark circles under his eyes, and he'd visibly lost weight while he recovered. Tedha frowned – he needed the little fighter to look like he was still at his physical peak, in spite of the injury, if the family were to still make money off of him. A sick or visibly weakened fighter didn't hold the crowd's attention for very long! He thought about it for a long time, while Kes left off the stretches and moved into light weapons practice.

"A costume," he said finally. "Something flashy, something that hides the wound and captivates the crowd…maybe a helmet? And something else, something to draw the crowds' eyes away from your head…"

Kes ignored him in favor of maintaining his focus on the targets in the far wall – his aim was still shaky, even with his signature weapons.

Tedha considered his other options. "Maybe you should go out in the Arena this afternoon for the target practice with the Dead Ones? We can bill it as a special appearance…"

….

As he sent his blades spinning into the crowded, milling, shrieking cluster of Dead Ones, Kes found his eyes drawn to a tall, thin, sickly Triceraton. The creature reached out to him, beseechingly. Kes paused, confused. There was something there, something that should be important to him…the image of the females floated in his mind…

He shook his head, dispelled the image, and sent two _kes _spinning in rapid succession, straight into the heart of the former assistant to the Arena Master.

He had already forgotten he ever knew anyone named 'Trell'.

….

"I know _exactly_ what that dosage does to him!" Tedha's mother roared her fury, bringing one heavy fist crashing down on the desk to underscore her words. "Does he think I'm some sort of idiot, that I can't calculate dosages and effects for my own fighters?"

Tedha bit his tongue on his first several responses – speaking now would only bring his mother's attention back to him, instead of leaving her angrily obsessed with Occe and his rules about drugging combatants.

"Does he think he can dictate my management of my own fighters?" _Crash!_ "Has he forgotten who I am?!" _Crash!_ "How dare he try to subvert the orders I gave for the management of my own property?!" _Crash!_

Tedha began to fear for the structural integrity of his desk.

She seethed wordlessly for a long moment. Then, "I'll speak to his mother about this…" she threatened through gritted teeth.

Tedha perked up. Even the threat of maternal intervention might be enough to persuade the Arena Master to back off. And then, everything would be right back on track…he made a mental note to speak to the costume designers about adding something shiny and distracting to the helmet design that his mother had approved, shortly before she began her tirade against Occe; the crowd always loved to see sparkly things on the champions. It also increased the marketing opportunities – a new look for the little fighter meant that new figures, cups, banners, and the like, would all need to be crafted and delivered.

Yes, Tedha thought in satisfaction, things were getting back on track for him.

….

When they brought him back into the tunnels after his "Triumphant Return to the Arena", they wasted no time in disarming and restraining him. Occe drew his attention with something sparkly, while Trell tossed a net over him, then the two Triceratons rushed him. They confined his hands in the heavy, military-grade restraints that had been used on him and his companions years before, and left him to wear himself out against the net – Tedha's mother wanted to keep him from doing any more harm to himself while the drug ran its course.

"He's coming out of it faster," Occe commented. "The first time that idiot dosed him, it took half a day to wear off. Now it's taking half that much time. He's habituating."

"Is that a good thing?" Trell wanted to know.

Occe looked thoughtful for a long moment. "No, it's not," he said finally. "It means he already on the downhill slope of the narrative that that idiot Tedha is playing out, and he doesn't know it yet." He paused to appraise the little figure that had collapsed, finally, into the deep sleep that always followed the use of the drug. "Damn shame. Coulda lasted twice as long, if his management had been more clever."

Trell sucked in a breath, not daring to defend his family's decisions.

_The waters stilled. He began to sink toward the ocean floor._

….

The next several cycles went well, from Tedha's perspective. The little fighter seemed to return to the top of his form without a hitch. The merchandise sold well. The younglings advanced in their training with minimal need for culling. His mother was pleased.

She still seemed pleased, in fact, on the day that she drifted past his office door. "Don't order any more merchandise for the little one, Tedha," she said, without entering or looking up from the display pod she carried. "It's time."

He sighed. It was inevitable, but…he wished that the smooth ride could last a little bit longer.

His mother's sense of timing seemed eerily accurate a few days later. Kes faced off against a Dogiri fighter, a member of that culture's warrior priesthood. The Dogiri had been captured as a spy and was clearly intended, by the laws of the Republic and the will of the crowd, to die as punishment for his crimes. But it seemed he didn't intend to go down easily.

The Dogiri was outfitted with a double- ended halberd – an old-fashioned weapon, to be sure, but it suited the image held in the popular mind about the warrior priests. And more important to Tedha: it coordinated beautifully with the image established by Kes' ornate helmet. _Yes, the vid stills from this match will sell like star-cakes…perhaps I need to add some more visual interest to Kes' look,_ Tedha was thinking, when the first sign of the end occurred.

The Dogiri somehow got under the little fighter from Earth, twisted around, and threw him backwards.

The helmet came off.

Then the Dogiri closed in for the kill, halberd poised to come down in the center of Kes' head.

Kes reacted with speed, yanking himself backwards and to one side; the halberd sank into the sand. As the priest struggled to free it, one of the Earth-warrior's namesake weapons flashed. The blade sank to the hilt in the Dogiri's throat.

The priest, already dead but not yet ready to admit it, grabbed Kes' head as he fell. And then he pushed the fighter's head onto the upturned curve of the halberd's blade, where it was still imbedded in the sticky sands.

The crowd gasped.

Tedha groaned. It couldn't be over so fast…could it?

But Kes lay still, pinned by the weight of the dead Dogiri, bleeding red onto the sand. The halberd glinted, red and silvered steel, as the camera platforms floated closer.

Voices in the crowd came clearly to Tedha's ears, proclaiming the former champion a lost cause. He sighed. "It was fun while it lasted, wasn't it?"

Occe glared at him, and opened his mouth to say something – when a roar from the crowd interrupted.

Kes was struggling out from under his fallen foe. Blood poured down the side of his head, again – the new injury somehow bisecting the previous, still-unhealed one. He staggered, went to his knees next to the weapon, then used the shaft of the halberd to pull himself upright.

Wild cheers from the crowd covered even the announcers' blather about this surprise. The cheers continued, undimmed, for the entire length of time that Kes made his way, staggeringly, across the sands to the entrance tunnels. He made it all the way inside before he collapsed again.

Tedha smiled grimly. At least the souvenirs that were currently in stock would still be in demand for a few more days. But it was good that he hadn't ordered any more.

…

He tossed restlessly on the shelf-bed of his cell. His hands kept reaching for blankets that weren't there – he was so cold!

Blood loss and infection laid him low, and he suspected that there had been several angry conversations between Occe and the rest about the need to put him out of his misery. He shivered, and tried to pull himself together enough to at least pretend he was fine – in his mind's eye, there was the faintest echo of an image of a yellow-haired child, and the sense that his longed-for death would betray her.

_"Your females are safe!"_ someone said to him once…or had he dreamed it?

He wished someone would bring him a blanket. He was so cold…

His dreams were horrible.

Waking was almost worse. There was the sense that things were coming to an end, now, and it frightened him for reasons that he couldn't name, but knew were bound up with the child. He wanted to die. Death held no terrors for him anymore – nothing could be worse than what he'd endured in the Arena, though he no longer trusted that he had ever had a life before it – but there was a reason, a terribly important reason, that he stay alive.

In his brief moments of lucidity, he became aware that someone was tending to the wound. The entire right side of his head, from just behind his ear on back, felt like it belonged to some evil, pestilent entity that was trying to burrow its way, millimeter by millimeter, into his skull…and that reminded him all over again of the horrible sound that the blade had made, as it scraped the bones of his skull. He thought he might throw up, if there were anything in him to expel, and if it wouldn't make the throbbing pain take over his entire body.

"Going to fix you up, if it's the last thing I do," Occe said grimly, somewhere near his damaged ear. "Show that pompous fool a thing or two about managing a fighter…"

He wondered who the pompous fool was.

He wondered who the fighter was.

Darkness beckoned, and he fell into it gratefully.

He woke, and slept, and woke again, with no sense of time. Once he heard voices shouting in the narrow confines of his cell, but by the time he forced his eyes open, he was alone.

On the third day after his injury, he was able to sit up unassisted, without swaying too badly.

One cycle later, he stood in the entrance tunnel looking over the sands where he had nearly died. "Listen up, all of you!" Occe barked to the tunnel at large. "This is target practice with the Dead Ones. Use your weapons – no, idiot, not your hands, unless they can be separated from your arms and flung at them," he snarled this as an aside to a Triceraton warrior who had clearly seen better days, "and take down as many of them as you can. They're expensive to feed, and we need to put the meat to better uses. Now go!"

His hands shook when he pulled the first blades from his belt, and he dropped one into the sands. That had never happened before…or so he thought. It was hard to remember, anymore, what had gone on even one cycle earlier.

He was dizzy, too – the last remaining spark of rationality he had told him that he was pushing himself too fast, after the severity of the injuries. He was careful with his steps, because the shifting sands hinted at falls for the unwary.

Target practice was endless. Worse, he missed more than he hit. _The end_, he thought in equal amounts of dismay and relief.

He would gladly have gone to join the Dead Ones, and ended his life as a target himself, if it hadn't been for the dismay.

When practice was over, he stumbled back into the tunnels. Occe's heavy hands came down on him, steered him to a cell, pushed him onto a shelf. He was so tired, dizzy, and anxious to be still that he put up no resistance. His last thought was to wonder when his cell had gotten so _crowded…_

The pain in his hands almost wasn't enough to wake him. He dragged himself out of a smothering sleep, heavy-limbed and weak, just in time to see Occe and the little Triceraton doing…something…to the back of his right hand. It _hurt_. He pulled at it, then gave up when they didn't release him right away. He settled for curling his left hand up under himself instead, trying to soothe away the pain there. He didn't make a sound of protest, and it didn't occur to him to wonder what was going on. He went back to sleep in spite of it.

When he woke again, the first thing his foggy gaze fell on was the raw wound of the tattoo that had been clumsily needled into the back of his right hand. He bolted up, barely suppressing a cry of disgust –

"Yeah, thought you'd react that way…"

He whipped his head around so fast that he almost fell off the shelf with the resulting dizziness.

Barely at arm's length, another Dogiri regarded him with tired cynicism. "Most people don't like the tattoos. Is it the inept design, I wonder? The poor application? The fear of death by contaminated needles?" His right eye glinted – the left eye was a ruined wreck, hidden under a tangled knot of obviously-infected flesh. "Or is it the certain knowledge that it means we're all likely to die in the next day?"

Kes – he wondered when he'd finally come to accept the name as his own – looked carefully around the cell. It wasn't where he expected to wake up. Instead of his solitary, blood-stained room, he found himself in a much larger version of it, surrounded by beings from at least a dozen worlds. All of them bore the same tattoos on their hands, or whatever passed for the physical equivalent of hands.

He knew many of them by sight. These were the other warriors who fought in the Arena, either in teams or alone. These were, in a very real way, his peers.

They were also just past the point of being highly popular or effective in the Arena. These warriors were typically organized into teams which then were sent out to depict actual battlefield slaughter. The killing went on until all members of one team were dead; whichever team had any members still standing (and in possession of most of their limbs) was judged the winner.

With a sinking heart, he realized why he was in the room.

Other than his chatty neighbor, no one else in the room seemed to be paying any attention to him. He returned the favor, turning his gaze instead to the bleeding tattoos. It hurt to clench his hands into fists, but not enough to stop him from holding a weapon. The tattoos would serve as an identifier of the members of each team. If he remembered correctly – and he could never be sure he did, anymore – the ink of the tattoos also served as a sort of tracking device during the melee, keeping the watching audience electronically apprised of the position and numbers of each team during the battle.

_The end, _he thought again.

He found that he didn't care anymore.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

Occe moved among the milling fighters, shoving and yelling as they were herded into the entrance to the Arena. On the other side of the Arena, little Trell was doing the same with the other team, he knew – the youngling caught on quickly. He set aside the growing suspicion he had of his new assistant – it would be like Tedha and his mother to try to undermine and eliminate him through subtle means – and focused on his plan for the next bout: re-instate the little fighter from Earth as a moneymaker for the Arena. If he lived through the battle, he would become even more popular than he had been when he was Tedha's main property.

And if he didn't live, well, at least his decline was a swift one. Occe had seen enough warriors die, and die in enough horrible ways, to appreciate that.

Still, there was always something that an Arena Master could do to get the results he wanted…

He finally found Kes, standing quietly off to one side of the mass. The little one had healed up much faster than Occe expected, but he was still weak from the injuries he'd suffered. There wasn't much hope that he'd be able to avoid getting butchered in the next match, unless someone looked out for him.

Occe didn't intend to go out into the Arena, ever, but he did have an interest in besting Tedha. To that end, he did what he could for Kes: as the fighters began making their way onto the sands, he pressed the business end of an ampoule into the warrior's arm. "Now go," he pushed Kes back into the flow of warriors headed out onto the sands before the drug could take effect. He hoped it was enough.

There was too much to do in the tunnels for Occe to be able to watch the match. Too many fights still needed arranging, new combatants had to be tamed and contained, injuries from earlier had to be evaluated. Occe spent the time reviewing the fighters still alive, and allocating the weakest of them to the Dead Ones. He yelled at Trell for mooning around, watching the match, when there was work to be done, and set the youngling to hauling off the carcasses that were piling up in the common area.

Even while Trell worked, more bodies were delivered: the first casualties of the melee. Warriors staggered in under their own power, bleeding from heinous wounds, collapsed, and died. Other would-be fighters showed cowardice by pretending to be injured – for these, Occe had no mercy, but wounded them where they lay and let them scream until someone else had time to deal with them.

Through the screams and the death-rattles and the mockery of the wounded ones by the warriors who were not involved in the melee, Occe heard something new. He paused. The battle was always a noisy thing, of course, and each new species or culture had its own battle cry – maybe that's what he heard? No, this was a sound he recognized, but hadn't heard before during the melee. Audiences were always vocal, of course. What was the point of having an audience, if they didn't express their appreciation for good fights? But this was something new. In this case, the audience wasn't just cheering or booing as their favored team's fortunes changed.

The whole crowd appeared to be…laughing?

"Occe!" Trell ran back into the common area. "Come quick!"

"We don't have time to be watching the match – come back here, you idiot child!" Occe shouted after the youngling's retreating back. "Merciful Divinity, have you lost your mind? You know we've got too much work to do…" His words trailed off as he caught up to Trell in the entrance.

The battle was most definitely over. Dozens of bodies lay scattered over the sand, many of them still grappling with each other even in death. The few that still had life in them probably wouldn't have it for long. Half a dozen fighters were still on their feet. But while Occe and Trell watched, the six became five…then four…then three.

Kes, in what could only be a true berserker's rage, hunted the last survivors of his own team across the sands.

Trell breathed some words of appreciation, as the little fighter practically flew after the Olinys as it fled for the entrance, gibbering in fear. It stopped when it saw the Triceratons loitering in its path, dodged to the side, and then – comically – began to try to dig a hole to hide in, after the manner of its kind. It only had time to throw three or four scoops of sand up from its would-be hiding place, before Kes was on it. He snapped the Olinys' spine with his bare hands.

Before the body even began to twitch, he was off again, intent on killing the last living creature in the Arena. The crowd laughed at the attempt by that failed warrior, too, to evade his fate.

Occe grabbed Trell by the shoulder. "In my quarters, youngling, quickly – get the stunner!"

"But – "

"Go!" he roared, and shoved the young Triceraton down the tunnel with all the force he could muster. Many lives depended on what would happen next – not least of which was his own.

The drug he'd given Kes was too powerful, he realized it now. In his berserker mode, the little fighter was likely to look around for a target, any target, on which to vent his fury…and notice the audience. If that happened, the casualties in the stands would also spell the end for Occe and every Triceraton involved in supporting the Arena.

The crowds might like to see blood spilled, but they most definitely didn't want that blood to be theirs.

Occe stepped out of the tunnel entrance. Kes, on the far side, turned slowly, looking for another target. Even at that distance, the Arena Master could see the little fighter snarl as he looked over the field of the dead and dying – his teeth flashed white in a face nearly blackened with the drying blood of uncounted beings.

Kes almost looked up, into the stands. Almost…but then his eyes fell on Occe.

The Triceraton had to remind himself that he would die, anyway, if his nerve failed, to keep from bolting when those eyes met his. He wrangled warriors for a living, and had faced down creatures far larger and more obviously dangerous in his time. But he'd never seen his own impending death written so clearly on one of their faces before, and been so alone and unprotected in the face of it.

Footsteps rang in the corridor behind him.

Kes barreled across the sands toward him.

Time seemed to stop. Occe had all the time he needed to wonder if Trell was as canny as he'd feared the youngling might be – if Tedha had really taught his cousin properly, the youngling would get back with the stunner only a second or two too late to help Occe. Then he would stun Kes, become something of a hero for controlling the raging warrior, and step into the role of Arena Master himself, several years ahead of schedule.

He wondered how long it would take his mother and sister to notice that he was gone.

Kes closed the distance between them.

Occe put one hand out behind him, feeling blindly for the grip of his stunner, and almost laughed out loud for sheer surprise when it smacked into his palm. It felt like it took a million years to bring his arm back around into the shooting position. Kes was almost in arm's reach by the time Occe got the stunner around in front, pointed it correctly, and fired. The little fighter fell down literally at his feet.

For the first time, Occe heard the crowd noises. Until that second, everything had played out in a hiss of white noise. With the crisis passed, he realized that the crowd had almost no idea what had just happened. They were going about their usual business: wandering in and out of the stands, buying lunches, collecting souvenirs. "Well," he said at last, once he could trust his own voice, "don't just stand there, youngling – let's get the meat where it belongs!"

He locked Kes up, carefully, in a cell by himself. And he holstered the stunner and wore it for the rest of the cycle, in a break with his own long-established habits.

He had the satisfaction of knowing that his gamble had paid off. After the melee, Tedha took a revived interest in the little fighter, and arranged some additional high-profile matches for him. Kes performed flawlessly. No one dared risk drugging him any longer, though, so the matches were relatively quick.

"Dulled weapons," Tedha decided – and the matches became a bit more bloody. Then two cycles later, they agreed that it would be even more interesting to the crowd if Kes fought with no weapons at all, against heavily armed foes.

Even so, the crowd's interest inevitably waned. Even Occe, in his zeal to best Tedha, had to admit that the Earth warrior had come to the end of his time as a darling of the crowds. "It was good while it lasted," he sighed as he passed Kes' cell. Tedha had already moved on to new properties, and was busily grooming new recruits for the games. Left to his own devices, Occe planned the best way he knew of to give the little fighter as much of a run as he could: keep him out of the Arena for a couple of cycles, then put him back in during the morning sessions. If he was lucky, the novelty of it would draw bigger crowds for those events for a while. And from there, it would be easy to ease him into the final fight.

_There wasn't anything left to see in the blood-waters. And he no longer cared to see anything, anyway. _

_When his brothers' voices floated down to him, he didn't recognize them. _


	10. Chapter 10

Bear in mind, this story is entirely in the Mirage continuity…

**Chapter 10**

April unlocked the door, careful to balance the need to be quiet for her tenants against the need to alert the ninja in the apartment that all was well before stepping inside. "Mikey? We're home!"

She and Casey slipped through the door as quickly as they could, and locked it behind them. Mike wouldn't, after all, be going home that way!

"Mike?"

"Wha - ?" He peeked groggily over the back of the couch. "Oh. Hi…"

"Were you asleep?" April was surprised.

"Yeah, I put Shad down about," he checked the clock while he yawned, "three hours ago, and started watchin' a movie…"

"Hm," she looked more carefully at him. He was puffy-eyed from the impromptu nap, true, but the circles under his eyes hadn't developed just during the evening while he babysat for her and Casey! "Why don't you go back to sleep, okay? Spend the night with us?"

"No, I gotta get back – " he protested.

"You could be here when Shadow wakes up in the morning," April suggested. "You know how she fusses when she wakes up and you're gone…"

"…okay…" he relented at the thought of the toddler. "Gotta call Splinter…"

"I'll let him know, okay?" she assured him. "Just go back to sleep."

"…kay…" he was already sliding back into unconsciousness. By the time she came back with a blanket for him, he was slackly asleep again.

"He okay?" Casey nodded in the direction of the living room as he stepped out of Shadow's room. "He seemed pretty beat, to me."

"Me, too," April frowned. She called Leo to let him know that Mike was staying at the family apartment for the night. She wanted to ask if there was something going on that she should know about – was there a reason Mike looked so beat? – but let it go for the time being, figuring that it was a conversation best held in daylight.

For a long time after getting into bed, she lay there staring at nothing. Some days, she had a hard time with the idea that "life goes on" – and this was one of those days.

The Turtles and Splinter came back to New York City three months to the day after Donatello's disappearance. They didn't let her know they were coming, but just showed up one night in the kitchen, sneaking in from the hidden basement access and surprising her while she did the dishes.

She was glad to see them.

She was angry that they had given up the search.

She understood completely why they had to do it.

Things had been a little strained between the two households during the two weeks since, while they re-adjusted to life in close proximity…and to life without one member of the family. Only Shadow seemed immune to the slight tension, demanding her usual share of Mike's attention whenever he was near and fussing if she didn't get to see him when she wanted to.

For Shadow's sake as much as for their own sanity, April and Casey made arrangements for Mike to come and babysit the child while they went out.

She tried not to feel guilty for enjoying the movie – wasn't she still grieving? Hadn't a member of her family, a virtual brother to her, been declared dead recently?

April wondered if it would feel more real to her if she'd actually seen his body.

She shivered at the thought, and wrapped up more tightly in the comforters. It really wasn't possible to think that he was dead! But it was equally impossible to think that he was still alive, after all of this time with no word or sign from him.

It took her a long time to fall asleep.

She must have been asleep, though, because the numbers on the clock had changed when her eyes flew open again. She struggled up out of the comforters, panicked for no reason she could come up with in her sleep-addled thoughts.

Casey was already on his feet, though. The big man grabbed up a baseball bat and charged out into the darkened hallway.

Someone was screaming.

She was halfway to Shadow's room before she woke up enough to realize that it was Mike.

The sound choked off on the heels of that realization.

"Mike?" Casey loomed in the narrow doorway to the living room, blocking her view. "Mikey, buddy, you okay?"

She forced her way past him, noting his lack of resistance as she did – it must not be too bad, for him to give way to her – and assessed the situation for herself.

Mike was on his feet in the middle of the living room, wild-eyed. The coffee table was overturned by his feet. The TV remote must've been involved in the chaos, too, because the screen was playing snow and static just behind the Turtle.

"Mike? Are you okay?" She stepped closer, carefully.

He gasped and backed up, one arm coming up in a warding gesture. Casey grabbed her shoulder to pull her back, and she shook him off.

"Mikey, it's okay. Wake up!"

He blinked. Dropped his arm. Looked around the room. "Aw, geez…" he whispered.

It didn't take long to set the room to rights. It took far longer to pull the story out of the reluctant Turtle.

"So you've been having these nightmares ever since Don disappeared?" April handed him aspirin and water for the headache that knotted his brow up, and sat down next to him on the couch.

He shrugged deeper into the blanket and avoided her gaze while he obeyed the wordless command. "Yeah, sorta. It doesn't happen every night." He looked up anxiously when Casey came back from checking on Shadow. "I didn't wake her up, did I?"

"Nah, she can sleep through a bomb blast," Casey waved this off.

"But it happens a lot of nights, doesn't it?" she guessed shrewdly. "And when it does, you don't just…roll over and go back to sleep, do you?"

"No," a small shake of his head. "It's really hard to sleep, after."

"Mike…what is this dream?"

If he could've pulled even further away from her, he would have, she could tell. She shot Casey a look. He understood, and climbed to his feet. "Well, I gotta get to work early tomorrow, guys – let me know if anybody needs me, or something…" and he went off to bed with a show of carefully closing the bedroom door behind him.

Alone, now, April tried again. "Mike…what are you dreaming?"

He shrugged and went on avoiding her eyes.

"Is it _about _Don?" she pressed.

Still no answer. But no negative shake of the head, either – she felt like she was on the right track.

"You have a lot of nightmares, though, don't you? You like to give yourself nightmares. I've seen you do it, with monster movies and scary books and that sort of thing," she studied him as he looked off into the middle distance away from her. "So these must be different."

He shuddered, then. "Yeah…different."

She fell silent. She could tell he was getting close to crumbling – every instinct she'd developed over years of dealing with the Turtles told her he was nerving himself up to finally break down and tell her what she wanted to hear. All she had to do, then, was stay quiet and wait for Mike to talk into the silence.

He squirmed a little in the blanket, and shot her a covert look. She went on waiting, sure now of her game: the silence was making him more nervous than the idea of telling her.

And finally, he broke down and told her what she wanted to know: "It's the same dream all the time, right? It's…I'm in this place. I should know it, but I don't. I can't see enough of it to recognize anything…I know this place, really. Or at least I think I do – maybe I've just dreamed it so many times that it feels like I really know it. But it's a place, with walls and doors and people. I can't see the people, but I hear them. And there's a noise, off to one side, like a crowd at a baseball game or something…I don't like it, and I don't know why.

"I go through this doorway, every time. I can't stop myself. I don't even really want to, because…because Donnie's in there." His eyes flicked up to meet hers, briefly. "He's in there, and he's…it's bad, and I don't even know why! He's doing that thing, where he's on the ground with his arms and legs tucked up under his shell, know what I mean?"

She shook her head, wordlessly. Mike clambered out of the blanket and folded himself down onto the floor. "Like this," he demonstrated. He bent forward over his folded legs, pulling his arms in tightly enough to hide them under his shell, and dropping his head to the floor. It was a pose that disturbed her, and she was glad when Mike uncoiled and came back to the couch.

"We can't pull into our shells anymore, o' course," he told her uncomfortably. "The arm bones and leg bones are too long, and the muscle structure…well, anyway, that's as close as we can get. And it's only something we do…we've done it since we were kids…when we're sick or really, really upset about something. Like, 'depressed'-upset. Even I don't do that very often, not even when I have a nightmare.

"But Donnie – he's like that. On the floor in this room in this weird place. And I try to put my hands on him, to get him out of that position, but my hands go right through him. It's like I'm a ghost. Or maybe he is, I dunno…he can't hear me, either. I call him and call him, and he doesn't move.

"And then something starts coming into the room. It's like a pipe broke somewhere and the water's leaking in, right? Only the water, it's really blood. Blood starts coming into the room along the floor, really slow at first. I don't know where it's coming from. Don, he doesn't move. And when the puddle gets big enough that it touches him, it starts coming faster. And I'm yelling at him, really getting scared now, because the blood is going to make him sick where it touches him. I dunno how…and it's not until the blood starts really pouring in that I realize that it's going to drown him. He's going to drown, right there in front of me, in this room full of blood, and there's not a damn thing I can do to stop it – " He shuddered, then, before finishing up by saying simply, "And then I wake up."

"Screaming?"

He looked away again. "Not always. Not as much as I used to. It's gotten easier to wake myself up before I actually get that far…"

"Does Splinter know about this?"

He laughed shortly. "Yeah, everybody knows. I woke 'em up enough times…"

She suppressed a wave of irritation – was she, or wasn't she, a member of the family, damn it? – because it wasn't going to help the situation at hand. She made a mental note to hash that out with the family collectively, the next chance she got, and brought her attention firmly back to Michaelangelo. "Does he think that there's any chance that…maybe…these aren't just dreams? Is it possible that you're actually not dreaming?"

"It's gotta just be a dream," he frowned. "I had nightmares alla time, back when we first went to the farm – you did, too, right?"

He had a point there. It was even the same dream, over and over, that robbed her of the ability to sleep. She pressed the issue anyway, unwilling to give up the idea. "Are you sure it's just a dream? Could it be, I dunno, some sort of, of contact from Don?" It felt stupid the minute it left her mouth.

"Nah," Mike shot it down with an uncomfortable shrug. "It's a dream. If there were some kinda psychic connection or somethin'…well, wouldn't that be more up Splinter's alley than mine? Or even Leo, it would be more Leo's deal – he's into all of that astral plane stuff. Not me. If Donnie were able to reach out that way – and I'm not sayin' he can't, because I have seen Master Splinter do some freaky stuff in my life, like switchin' bodies with an old guy in Japan and crap like that – why would I be the one who got the message?" Strangely, he seemed totally relaxed about the idea that someone else might be able to have some kind of unconventional contact with his missing brother – as long as that person wasn't him.

April shook her head. "That still doesn't rule out the idea that it could be something more than just a dream, Mike. In fact, you're really just making my point for me. It's possible, isn't it?"

"Not me," he shrugged. "It's not really my thing. And besides, even it was happening – wouldn't Master Splinter know about it? Even he thinks these are just dreams."

"Ah." Now _that _was crushing.

Mike stood and stretched. "Well, now that I've ruined your night, too, I'm gonna head home."

"It's four in the morning," she objected.

"Yeah, I gotta get up in a few hours for practice," he grimaced. He folded the blanket up and headed for the basement door. Halfway there, he paused and looked back at her. "April?" His expression was solemn.

She looked up from her folded hands. "Mm?"

"Thanks." And then he was gone.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

Kes paced in his cell.

It wasn't too hard to see that he was coming to the end of his usefulness in the Arena. He hadn't been sent out to trim back the ranks of the All Stars in cycles. In fact, he hadn't been out in the Arena itself for anything but target practice in cycles – for days, he'd done nothing but explore the confines of his miserable cell to the limit of his tolerance and then past it.

Now he was going back into the Arena again.

Occe had the elaborate helmet ready; Kes had seen it as the big Triceraton went past the barred door of his cell. It stirred him as nothing had in…in…days? cycles? more time than that? It didn't matter. He knew what the helmet meant: It was time to fight again. It was time to feel the grit under his feet. It was time to hold a weapon again…

Instinctively, he knew he might die in the Arena that day.

He no longer cared, or could imagine a reason why he might care.

He didn't think such things in words. He'd forgotten how to use words, even in the deepest part of his own mind.

Occe let him out of the cell. Fitted him with the helmet. Pointed out into the open area of the Arena and said something that was completely meaningless – it was just noise, something that had no more meaning or importance than the sounds the crowds made – before pushing him into the entrance tunnel.

Kes stepped out onto the Arena sands for the last time.

......

"Time for the Crazy, Mixed-Up Match!" one announcer called jovially.

......

Trell ran the scanning equipment across the humans that had been delivered to the Arena just that morning. He frowned as he checked the results, and sorted the females out. He tried to be gentle – he'd heard that the High Council frowned on damage being done to females of other species – but they screamed and fought him anyway. He finally had to resort to threatening them with a blaster to get them to part from their males.

He shook his head in disbelief as the females were rounded up and taken away again by the military. What kind of species spent so much emotion and aggravation on its males? The females would be returned to their people, eventually. Surely they had more males at home?

He dismissed the thoughts and turned back to the task at hand.

"Awright, maggots," the Triceraton shoved the remaining humans into a rough sort of line. "Here's how it works – you go out into the Arena when I tell you to. You try to get to the sword that's standing out there in the sand – see it? – before Kes does. And then you fight him. Simple, innit? Even you scum shouldn't have any problem remembering that." He paused, and pulled one of the men who was sobbing in fear out of the line; the man was shoved roughly through another archway into darkness. The Dead Ones would take care of him. "…got no time for cowards like that… Anyway, I'll send you out one or two at a time, and you wait here and be quiet until I tell you to go. Got it?"

He turned away, uninterested in the reactions of the meat. And then a voice said, "I don't see this sword you're talking about – and what if one of us wins the fight with this, this _Kes_? What do we do then?"

The Triceraton turned back again and regarded the line of captives with surprise. Most of them quailed under his gaze ("_Cowards,_" he thought contemptuously) and melted away from one of their number.

Trell bared his teeth at the lone captive, who looked vaguely surprised to be abandoned by his fellows. "You." He pointed. "You're going in first."

"Wait." Occe appeared out of the tunnels. Several of the captives shrank back in fear. Wide eyes went to the Arena Master's battered head: the broken horn, the scarred frill, all of the signs of a life lived in danger. "Give me the scanner."

He adjusted a control and re-scanned the human. Trell bit his tongue on the urge to justify himself – he was all too aware that he could lose his name and his place at just a word from Occe, and didn't want to do anything that would attract the bigger Triceraton's ire. The Arena Master ran the equipment carefully over the human, frowned, and repeated the gesture more slowly. He peered at the results. His face darkened.

"Utroms!" he spat. "This one stinks of Utrom – damn right that he's going in first! Good catch, Trell! I thought something seemed a little strange about this one."

Trell preened under the unexpected praise as much as the use of his name. Both were rare, and worth treasuring.

"Utroms?" The human looked startled. "What are you talking about? I don't know what – "

"Stop talking," Occe grabbed one ridiculously skinny arm. "I know all about you and your Utrom masters, and I won't allow you to live in my Arena one second longer than I have to. Trell! Scan the rest of them again, and see if they have that same taint on them. Bloody Utroms and their cursed tentacles get into everything and ruin it…" and he hauled the protesting human toward the gate.

"I don't know what you're talking about!"

"Some sort of mind-magic, like the Utroms have," Occe said decisively. "Their smell is all over your DNA, and you probably have some mental trick that you think will save you. Kes won't care, though. You'll be dead before you can do anything to him."

He brought them both to a halt just inside the arch of the gate. The thin metallic shimmer of the sword, planted in the exact center of the Arena, drew his attention. "See it now? If you can get to it first, human, then you might live for a moment or two longer."

Occe shoved the skinny form out onto the sands and slammed the gate closed behind him.

The human cowered against the gate.

Trell wandered up. "Should we send that one to the Dead Ones, too?" he asked doubtfully.

"No!" Occe shook his head, looking fiercely at the fragile figure. "I won't have that Utrom-taint around. If Kes doesn't take him down, I will."

A cheer went up from the stands. "See, there he is," the Arena Master rumbled. He spoke mockingly to the human through the bars of the gate. "Kes is already on the sands, puny one. Better get to that sword, fast, if you want to go on breathing for a little while longer." He turned away to deal with another man who fell to screaming in terror right at that moment, and the human was left to meet his end.

Trell took up Occe's space at the gate for a moment, eyeing the human carefully. He'd never seen one of the Utrom-changed humans before. As far as he could tell, this one looked the same as all of the other humans who came through the Arena tunnels. He raked a glance over the scrawny figure, wondering how he would recognize the next one that came along.

The human turned and grabbed the bars of the gate. He panted in his fear. He raised his face, aiming his wide and frightened eyes at Trell.

Something…_tickled_…in the back of the Triceraton's mind.

The human's fear was suddenly a tangible thing. Trell fumbled for the gate latch. He had to fix it. Pressure built in his mind. Something moved there, something foreign to the Triceraton, but utterly compelling. He couldn't breathe around it. The sensation in the back of his mind only grew stronger.

"Youngling!" Occe's hand fell on him, hard, and yanked him away from the gate. The Arena Master cursed. "Merciful Divinity, I'll shoot him myself! He's pulling his mind-magic on you."

Trell panted. "What…was it?"

Occe blocked the view through the gate with his own body. "Go get my stunner!"

"No – he's moving, see?" Through the Arena Master's spread legs, Trell saw the impossibly skinny legs of the human move away from the gate and head out into the center of the Arena. Trell climbed to his feet, clutching his head. "What did he do to me?"

"Doesn't matter now," Occe growled. "He'll be dead soon. Kes won't let him live long enough to look in his eyes."

The two Triceratons watched as the human ran for the sword. He ran through the hillocks and low depressions caused by earlier fights, fastidiously avoiding the dark, wet areas where the blood left fresh stains. The sand clung to his feet. He tripped, fell, and got up again, staggering.

Across the vast, open space of the Arena, Kes could be seen. The little fighter never rushed. Never gave any impression of being in a hurry. Never stumbled on the uneven surface. He simply moved forward, inexorably.

The human reached the sword first. He yanked it out of the sand with a visible effort, and then…simply stood there. The sword tip gouged another hole in the sand as the human struggled to gather the strength to lift it. The gems in the hilt winked in the glare of the Arena lights as the human wrestled with it.

Kes kept on coming.

Occe grunted in satisfaction. "Won't be long now…" In a break with his own long-standing habits, the Arena Master stayed by the gate, watching the match with avid eyes.

The human shuddered. It was visible to the watching Triceratons, even from their distance. The gems in the sword flashed again, colored sparks that matched the ones that flew from Kes' helmet as the Earth-fighter made his way to his cowering opponent.

There wouldn't be much of a fight, clearly.

Before he was within four sword-lengths of the human, Kes crouched. He shifted his weight, bunched his muscles, and leaped –

The human probably never felt the flying kick that sent him arching backwards into the bloody sand. He scrambled awkwardly to his feet, one hand open and reaching for the sword…

Trell swore he could see the very moment when the human realized that the weapon was now in Kes' hand.

......

Kes would've been disappointed at the ease of his victory, if he were still able to feel much of anything at all. He grabbed the sword as it fell from his opponent's hand, hefting the weapon easily. He spared a second to give the blade a contemptuous look – it was dull, again, and would take a little more force to get it into the bodies of the fallen; it was going to be a messy match. He spun it in his hand without realizing it, and brought it down to point at the torso of the man who lay at his feet.

He didn't have enough of his own mind left to wish that things were any different.

......

Occe felt something change. The enormity of his mistake rose up to almost choke him. He swore, low and fluently, at the realization that he was far too late to make any difference in what was about to happen. "Should've put his eyes out before I sent him out…!"

......

Something…stirred…in the back of his mind. Kes paused, and looked at his fallen enemy. There was something there, something that moved among the darkest places of his brain, something that wanted him to _feel _things and _know_ things again.

He shook his head, willing the feeling away. He couldn't feel things! It was vitally important that he _**not**_ feel things!

The _something_ in his mind grew stronger. It curled in him, latched onto the faint tremors in his placid mind, fed on his sudden confusion –

He gasped out loud, and backed away from this sudden attack. He couldn't think! He couldn't _**let **_himself think!

Steeling his resolve, he stepped up to finish what must be done. The sword went up. He glanced down at his beaten foe, assessing the best place to strike the killing blow, and met the eyes of his enemy –

– the _something _returned full-force, lashed out like a coil of energy, whipcracked past all his defenses and deep into his mind –

Both victor and vanquished screamed as the connection was made.

_SNAP!_

He went to his knees in the sand, keeping his grip on the sword only by force of habit from long years of training. Something touched him, deep in his brain. It wasn't physical, and yet it was: it ripped away all of the protections he'd built for himself since his capture. All of the mindless certainty, the indifference, the bloodlust and the sublimation of all that he was melted away. It felt like being caught under a waterfall, as the memories – not just of his recent life, but of the life before, the life he'd locked up in a vault – crashed over him, remorselessly. He screamed again, furious and grieving and in more pain than he'd ever imagined possible, as he was forced to take back everything about himself that he'd had to deny to survive.

And then Donatello, son of Splinter, heir to the teachings of Hamato Yoshi, got to his feet.

The helmet fell to the ground, and he kicked it aside. He swept the stands with his gaze – he couldn't remember ever really seeing them, before – then turned to look at the person at his feet.

_…got to get out of here…_

A memory floated to the surface: _"We're gonna ram this sucker right down their throats!"_

He paused. A camera platform floated at the corner of his eye – they'd been wary of him, at first, remembering how he and his brothers had escaped the Arena the first time, but in the intervening cycles they'd come to accept his indifference and floated close whenever they could. After all, he'd proven that he could be counted on to give them the types of footage they craved…he shivered as the plan congealed in his head.

_…get out of here, or die trying…_

He looked at the sword as though he'd forgotten it. Right on cue, the nearest camera platform swung in closer – there had been times when that gesture, from him, presaged a horrific death that sold well to the crowds. It still wasn't close enough, though.

Elaborately, he cranked his gaze back around to the man who still lay sprawled at his feet. With a slow gesture that owed much to the theatrics he'd been forced to learn, he brought the sword around to rest above the man's heart. The dulled point of the sword made a divot in the filthy shirt.

He paused.

The camera platform hovered in closer…closer…closer…

He moved.

He launched himself at the nearest camera platform. The rightful operator landed on the sands, hard, just as the platform itself came swooping down to the human, who gasped and put up his arms in a futile gesture of warding. Don snagged both upraised wrists in one hard grip and yanked the man up out of the sands.

And then they were both in the platform. Sand gritted under the man as he scrambled for balance – balance that he lost almost instantly as his new companion turned the platform around in a tight circle.

There was nowhere to go.

Triceratons in military uniforms were coming in on three sides. In the spaces between, other camera platforms closed the gap. Above them, more military-types hovered, trying to force them back to the ground.

Don ground his teeth audibly. He looked wildly from side to side.

_We're going to die here._ It didn't scare him as much as it should have. The man held onto the floor of the platform and looked up at Don. It came to him that this was a truth the man had no chance to internalize and accept, and he felt a small pang of remorse for that.

Overhead, he could see the faint light of the stars and assorted planets through the clear ceiling that protected the Arena. It was shame, really, that he'd never really gotten the chance to explore them…his eyes widened as the idea hit him.

The man looked at him for a second, his own eyes narrowing, then looked at the ceiling.

Don spun the platform around once more in a tight circle, scaring off the nearest of their would-be captors.

Then he pointed the platform at the high, clear ceiling and opened the throttle on the stolen vehicle.

As they shot upwards to what would surely be their deaths – either they'd get shot out of the air, or the platform would blow up on impact, or they would fall to their deaths after impact – Don surprised himself: he laughed. Relief and joy and wild abandon, all in that sound. He'd never heard anything like it before, and certainly not from himself. Tears filled his eyes – it had been such a waste, really, and soon his life would be over.

The platform lurched.

The man grabbed the hilt of the sword as it slid across the floor toward him, more to keep from getting cut than for any defensive reason. Don fought for control of the vehicle. Fought, and lost. The battered platform began to break apart around them.

They both looked toward the clear ceiling, and the hard, indifferent stars barely visible past it, as their wild attempt at suicide failed. Then they fell.

The man was snagged by a Triceraton soldier who tossed him indifferently into a corner of the larger transport. No one even bothered to take the sword away from him.

Don put up more of a struggle as he fell. The Triceraton was larger, but Don had more experience and skill, and he almost made it free of the platform. But as he twisted and dove for the side, another soldier grabbed him by the wrist before he could fall clear. His momentum carried him in an arc, pivoting on his captive wrist.

The Turtle couldn't even scream, as his right knee made contact with the dangerous underside of the vehicle: the anti-grav force field there pulverized the bone. Don writhed, suddenly losing all focus and determination in a white burst of agony. He made a sound that could've been a scream, if he'd had the ability to draw breath around his pain, as the Triceraton flung him into the floor of the transport.

They sank back to the sands of the Arena.

Through the haze of pain, he saw the man crawl across the platform to him, still dragging the dulled sword. Warm hands landed on his suddenly-clammy skin. _Shock_, he thought, _I'm going into shock…_The damaged knee looked wrong, almost melted. His stomach knotted at the sight.

Hasty conferences went on around them. Don couldn't think, could barely see, past the clusters of tall and bulky Triceratons that surrounded them. The crowd noises ebbed and flowed. Don was reminded sickeningly of the sound of the waves, whenever a storm rolled in off the water.

There wasn't anywhere to go to escape this storm.

......

The crowd went wild.

Occe shook his head in mingled admiration and dismay. Kes' performance was one of the most astonishing things he'd ever witnessed in all his years in the Arena. When he set up the series of Mis-Matched Fighter games, he had some idea that they would make a slow end of Kes' time. It seemed a shame to waste such skill and experience on such a routine warm-up match, but really, the crowds weren't showing a lot of interest in him anymore.

The crowds were interested now, though.

"Trell! Get the platform!" he called. Without looking back to see if he would be obeyed, he hurried out onto the sands to confer with the announcers and other relevant people. He thought he already knew what would come of it.

Escape attempts from the Arena's tunnels were depressingly regular, and usually dealt with in the ways that the Arena Master saw fit. Since they took place out of the view of the audience, there wasn't anything to benefit by calling attention to them, most of the time. (Though Occe himself had taken on the role of Arena Master following a particularly vicious attempt, years earlier.)

Escape attempts from the Arena itself were another matter.

If the escape attempt was a fear-maddened combatant, well, the crowds usually helped by forcing the would-be escapee back to meet his proper fate. It happened with depressing regularity: some benighted being from some miserable race would make it as far as the Arena itself and then completely fail to act like a proper warrior. Occe knew how to spot and weed these out before they got that far, but it kept the crowd awake and interested to let one through, now and again.

Even more rarely, though, a proven fighter with some successes to his name would suddenly make a break for it. Kes himself had been part of such a team, once: the only team to escape the Arena completely unharmed, and untraceable.

This time, he didn't make it.

This time, he would pay the price for his attempt. And in so doing, he would cement his status as a legendary player in the Arena.

Kes would die the Death of a Thousand Breaks. And he would do it all before the eyes of a fascinated crowd.

Shame about the knee, really, Occe thought dispassionately as he grabbed the little fighter up out of the floating platform. Captives usually reacted in such wildly interesting ways, when their knees were broken…provided that they had knees at all, of course; Occe was grateful that Kes wasn't a Spasmosaur or any other boneless creature. He didn't want to have to invent an appropriate death right there on the spot!

The human fighter would die later, of course. It was obvious he had something to do with the attempt – Kes had been perfectly obedient to the threat held over his head until that moment, so clearly there was some blame to assign to the puny human. But since it would take too long to explain his part in it to the crowd, it would be easier to just take him aside and run him through as they finished killing Kes. Meanwhile, he could just stay where he was: seated and miserable on the corner of the platform. He didn't deserve the theatrical death of a real fighter.

Kes still had some fight in him, and tried to get free of the restraints as Occe and Trell fastened them around his wrists. He didn't have much to give, though. When they tugged on his ankle to fasten it into the splayed restraints, he paled. His eyes rolled back, whitely.

Occe fingered the ampoule in his pocket and waited for the right time to administer it. The crowd didn't need to know that the little one suffered through his proper torments because he'd been drugged past his pain. It was never very popular with the crowd to have a warrior pass out, especially during this kind of execution! No, they wanted to know that the being strapped into the x-shaped frame felt every single one of the appropriate breaks.

The announcers looked on with approval, and Occe was grudgingly pleased. This wasn't something he'd done often. It was a sign of his skill as Arena Master that he'd had few fighters simply snap like this.

The crowd, sensing that something important was about to happen, grew even louder and more restless. The camera platforms hovered, filming everything from all angles.

Occe retreated to his quarters for the ceremonial gear. When he returned, he looked every bit as splendid and ominous as any fighter ever had.

He wasn't any good at speaking to crowds, and it seemed more theatrical for him to work in silence, so he listened and tried to look sufficiently deadly as the announcers explained it to the crowds.

"Folks, we're witnessing something historic today! The fighter once known as 'Kes' is going to demonstrate the proper way to die the Death of a Thousand Breaks! Rav, would you explain for the younglings exactly what we're going to see today?"

"Certainly, Xex! The Death of a Thousand Breaks is exactly that – the warrior will have his bones broken, a thousand times! It takes a lot of skill and experience to make that happen, Xex, without killing the warrior far too early. And many fighters who aren't our glorious Triceraton warriors can't handle the pain for very long! So let's see how long this little fighter can last, as the Arena Master starts the breaks!"

"Great, Rav, thanks! And for the members of the audience who feel like a 'break' themselves, be sure to visit the fine merchants in the concourse to pick up your souvenirs of this warrior, who was once dubbed 'Kes' by the crowd – they're sure to be collectors items after today!"

"And Xex, let's not forget: for the first 500 beings to stop by the announcers booth after the show, we'll have free limited edition vids of the Death of a Thousand Breaks that you're about to witness!"

The problem, of course, was that Kes didn't have a thousand bones. And many of the most promising bones for this sort of death were hidden away under the shell. Occe didn't think he could actually get to those bones without killing the little fighter outright. He shrugged. Traditionally, the breaks would start on the feet of the victim, and then work upward to the long bones in the legs. He would follow tradition, then, and see what needed to be done when he got that far.

He had no doubt that his victim would live long enough to make the decision necessary.

......

Donatello wasn't so sure.

The atmospheric converter he wore was fitted with a crude translator, of course, and he knew what was going on. He just couldn't think what to do about it.

The shock and pain mingled with the confusing turmoil of memories that overwhelmed him. Fractured images of his life, his family, slammed through his head with almost physical force. He flinched at a memory – their first Christmas tree – that caromed into his head and demanded his attention. He couldn't focus long enough to dispel the things that didn't matter, or summon any ability to decide what really did. Another memory – Raph broke his arm climbing around in the sewer tunnels; they were seven and didn't know what to do – seemed slightly more relevant to the moment, even if it was similarly useless.

The announcers' spiel sickened him.

Cool relief flooded into his arm. He came out his shock long enough to see Occe palm another ampoule, hiding the drug from the avid eyes of the crowd and the cameras. Don felt the tendrils of coolness trace through the veins, taking the worst edge off the pain. He still hurt, in ways and levels that he could never have imagined – but the violence of his memories slowed down. He could start to think again, around the massive spikes of pain.

He panted and lay back in the restraints as the cruel plans continued to be described around him. Nothing in his life had ever hurt as much as his knee did right that moment. Dizzily, he wondered if it would hurt less if the leg had actually been cut off.

It sparked another memory. He turned his head, looking for the human man with the sword. It was so hard to see, past the flashes of pain and darkness that threatened his vision! Not to mention the crowding hulks of the Triceratons who surrounded him with weapons drawn…finally, he spotted his target.

The man crouched, forgotten and almost invisible, in a corner of the gaudy platform. The dull sword lay at his feet.

Don wondered, equally dully, if it could be made useful.

The human looked up and met his eyes. Don felt that powerful energy move in him again at the glance. He didn't know what had happened. He didn't really care. All that mattered was that it all come to an end, soon.

He wanted to die, now.

Licking his lips, Don concentrated on that coil of energy that lurked in the back of his mind. He gathered all of his strength and focused on sending a thought to the man: _use the sword to kill me…_

Of course, the Triceratons would kill the man for it. Still, it would be a cleaner death than the one that had been planned for the man originally, when they'd sent him into the Arena to face 'Kes'.

Don shuddered at the memory of the name. He felt unclean to the very core of his being.

He brought his wandering thoughts back to the task at hand. He didn't even turn to watch Occe, now outfitted in some sort of garish get up, come up on his other side. He kept his gaze fixed on the human, even though he was peripherally aware that the Arena Master held a massive, metal-studded rod that he hefted with dangerous intent –

Don broke the gaze, then, to flinch and compress against the pain in his foot, as the rod came down and broke a bone in one toe. Instinct made him buck against the restraints.

He couldn't think any more. Thoughts stuttered, looped around, fragmented, and died under the onslaught.

Don's stoicism endured for the first several breaks, while he still had control.

By the time the Arena Master broke the heavy bone of his heel, the thin veneer of control had cracked. He gritted his teeth around something that wanted to be a scream of pain, and thrashed in the restraints.

While the other foot was broken, he keened in pain.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the man curl around the sword and shudder with every blow. Don snarled, furious and half-insane again with his pain, and wished he knew the words to rain curses down on the heads of the Triceratons who were causing him/them such pain. He writhed in the restraints, his body refusing to accept that it was trapped, and shuddered himself under the knowledge that it was only going to get worse, much worse, before it got better…

When the second heel bone shattered, Don was out of his mind with pain. Darkness flickered on the edges of his mind. He welcomed it, even knowing that he'd never wake from it.

At that moment, the man gathered himself to act. The intent to strike a blow – a mercy-killing – resonated through that coiled energy that linked the two of them.

He leaped to his feet and charged across the platform.

The Arena Master barely stirred as the man pushed around him and threw himself into the restraints. _Contact!_ The human's hand closed around the strained muscles of the Turtle's upper arm –

The Triceraton rumbled and reached for him. The man tightened his grip and snarled his fury. He dropped the sword into the restraints and clamped his other hand over the first. Don screamed again, high and hopeless, as the sword slid to a stop against his ruined right foot, the jeweled hilt an extra torture against his destroyed knee.

A light lanced down out of the sky.

Don felt himself being turned inside out, and screamed one last time, as he and the man were pulled away from each other and into nothingness.

......

_The blood-ocean roiled with turbulence. _

_He found himself hauled out of the depths by the force of the storm, flung into air and spray by the waves. The cool, dark comfort of stillness was lost, then – he remembered how to breathe, and couldn't stop doing it. He belonged on the surface, now. _

_The ocean rejected him, but didn't release him._


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

Pain…

It was all he knew.

Pain defined the limits of his reality, far beyond the limits of his body. Pain pumped liquid fire through his veins, pain dragged air like razor blades into his lungs, pain touched on every surface of his skin and tied him, screaming, into the world.

The light faded around him. He barely noticed. What mind he had left was focused on the escalating pain, as his body became solid once more.

He fell to the ground, heavy and helpless, and gasped for air that didn't hurt to breathe.

It was useless.

Hard hands on him, then – it couldn't hurt more than it already did – and an excited babble of voices all around.

_Occe'll be along any second now, to put me out of my misery,_ he decided muzzily. He hoped it would be soon.

Someone tugged the atmospheric converter out of his mouth, and he sighed. Suffocation on the inhospitable air of the Arena wasn't the death he'd hoped for, but he supposed it wouldn't take too long. He tried to take a deep breath, to hurry it along…

It took a long, grey time for him to realize that he could breathe without the converter.

It took even longer to realize that someone was moving him.

Things went grey and cold…

…

Hard surface under him.

Bright lights over him, instead of tearing him apart.

A tube down his throat, and he fought vaguely for consciousness. Something was wrong…something was very wrong…

Hard hands held him down.

The old nightmare, the one that was never far from the surface, the one that was ingrained in the subconscious of every member of his family, began to come to light.

_Scientists…_

He tried to struggle in earnest, bringing sluggish hands up to claw at the restraints. He had less strength than a newborn kitten.

The greyness rolled back over him.

…

Someone whispered words of comfort to him.

It was _annoying_.

He couldn't escape the voice. It was like the voice was actually in his head, where he couldn't even turn away.

Not that he had the strength to turn in the first place.

…

They were Doing Things to him. He couldn't tell what was being done…but it _hurt!_ The greyness darkened. Solidified. Rolled over him, from his crushed feet all the way to his muddled head.

He fell into it gratefully. And died.

…

He was dead.

It would've made him laugh for joy, if he'd had any lungs or voice with which to do so.

He spared one last glance at the ruined form that he'd once inhabited, then turned away, already losing interest. Whatever had once kept him pinned in living flesh was gone, and he couldn't wait to get away from it.

He headed out into the great unknown, shedding bits of memory and identity as he went, until even the sense of _he_ disappeared – what had souls to do with gender? – and the being was finally filled with a sense of peace. Out in the unknown, there was no pain, no fear, no lingering worry over incomplete work or unfulfilled obligations. There was only the sense of motion and joy.

It saw so much, as it retreated away from what had once seemed important! And it cared so little about what it saw.

It was dead, and it was pleased to be dead. It headed away from the ruins of its life without another backward glance. There was somewhere else it needed to be.

Drawn by an impulse it didn't question, the soul struck out into the void.

The soul forgot – didn't want to remember – all the details of the life it left behind. Even the grief of its loss was abandoned there.

There was no body. There was no memory of a body.

…so how could a being with no memory of arms or legs suddenly come up short, stopped by a hard grip around a non-existent wrist?

It struggled against the grip, confused. Who could stop it? How could it _feel _the tight grip of fingers? What could stop a soul in flight?

The grip tightened as the soul fought for freedom.

There was another _being_ behind the grip.

The soul didn't want to know this being. Didn't want to feel the grasping hand. Didn't want to feel itself dragged, bit by bit, back in the direction it had come.

It couldn't remember how to fight back. It struggled, and writhed, and finally howled in blank, confused, pointless defiance.

The other being weakened. The tight fingers relaxed, fractionally.

The soul renewed its efforts to get free and resume its headlong flight into the void.

It almost succeeded.

Then another hand/being came to join the first, and another after that – the combined strength of the other three beings was too much. The soul howled again, in fear and fury, as it was pulled backward, picking up the discarded pieces of itself as it went, gaining speed as it – as _he_ – gained memories and sensations. He remembered, too late, how to use a body, and moved into a defensive position a heartbeat too slowly…

…a heartbeat…

His heart…beat. Slow and faltering, and ready to fail again, but gradually gaining strength, the heart began to function again. He felt it from a distance, rushing helplessly back through whatever separated him from his body. A soft and hesitant rhythm that nevertheless welcomed him back, all unwilling, from wherever he had been…

He slammed back into his own body with a sound of fury and defiance that could almost have been an actual scream…

…

"It was just a dream, guys!" Mike said, again. "I just…it's just another nightmare, okay? Jeez, you'd think you guys've never heard me have a bad dream before!" He was beyond tired – the nightmares, which had been tapering off in recent weeks, had flared up with a vengeance that night. He yanked his blankets out of Leo's hands. "I just wanna get some sleep, okay? Go away, guys."

"Yeah, we'd like that, too," Raph grumbled.

"Mike, this was different," Leo frowned down at him. "We couldn't wake you up."

"Weren't trying hard enough," Mike muttered. He threw himself down into his sheets and burrowed in.

"That was the worst one – " Raph began.

"It's never been that bad before," Leo said at the same moment. "Mikey, you kept fighting, even when we were trying to wake you up." He rubbed at his forehead. "These are just getting worse, not better."

"Sorry I'm not getting over it," Mike snapped. He sat up again and fixed the two of them with a baleful look. He was too restless to try to sleep. He desperately wanted some sleep. "Sorry I'm still a little bit _freaked out_ that we lost a brother and we don't even know why!"

"That's not fair, Mike," Leo scowled at him. "You aren't – "

"Hush!" another voice intruded on something that threatened to turn ugly.

Mike swiveled in his bed and craned his head to look past his brothers.

Splinter stood in the doorway.

Leo sucked in a breath and swallowed whatever it was that he was about to say. _It looked like it tasted bad,_ Mike thought, and was dismayed to find that he was a little bit pleased about that.

Splinter's gaze was sharp, and Mike flinched, suddenly guilty for the angry thoughts that still drifted through his mind. More to the point, the Master's eyes stayed fixed on Michaelangelo. "Sensei?" he said uncertainly.

The Rat came into the room, his whole being suddenly radiating intensity. Leo and Raph backed up, out of his way. Mike swallowed, as Splinter sat on the edge of his bed and put one gnarled hand under Mike's jaw to look carefully into his eyes. "…Master?"

Splinter's expression grew more intense. "I have been a fool," he breathed. "A fool – so certain that I knew!"

Raph and Leo exchanged a confused look, but held their silence.

The Master tilted Mike's head a little, peering into his wide eyes. Then he let go ad sat back. He nodded grimly. "A fool," he pronounced. "I should have seen it. But I have been so blind – blinded by my own grief, and certain that I understood the limits of your abilities. You've refused to learn much of the mental disciplines…but apparently you know more than I ever saw."

Mike shook his head slowly. "Master," he began again, warily, "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Splinter's gaze became even sharper. "My son…these dreams are more than I realized. I've been so blind – ! I didn't realize that you were able to hear your brother."

Mike gaped at him, and couldn't collect his thoughts well enough to actually speak. He blinked, and found himself backing up to the head of his bed. "No…no…it's just…"

"Master, how can you be so sure?" It was Leo's voice, but to Mike it sounded like it was coming from a great distance. "Didn't you say…?"

"It's just dreams," Mike whispered harshly. "You said – you told me they were just dreams!" He couldn't get enough air, suddenly. He slid out of the bed and backed away from Splinter's hand, away from Leo, when they reached for him. "No…no, you told me…"

He glanced across the room and saw doubt in Raphael's face.

"It's just dreams!" he pleaded.

Raph nodded slowly. "Mike's always had bad dreams, Sensei."

"This is more than I – "

"No!" Mike clutched at his ears. "No, it's just – you can't do that, you can't tell me I've been hearing Donnie all this – no, no, it's not right!" He looked around the room, frightened and furious. "How can you tell me I've been hearing him all this time, when you said he was dead months ago!" He sobbed, and held up a warding hand in Leo's direction. "No! No, I won't – I can't believe it. It 's not right, that you'd tell me this now…now that he's really dead." He gasped and slapped a hand over his own mouth, frightened of what he'd just said as much as he was frightened of the realization that it was true.

Silence in the room.

It was too much. Mike lowered his hands with an effort, and drew a breath that was so choked with new grief that it hurt. "I can't stay here – I gotta go."

He spun and ran, heading for the front door with all the speed years of training could give.

They didn't follow him.

He ran through the tunnels, sick and heartbroken, trusting instinct to keep him safe. He didn't know where he was going. He didn't know what to do, with himself or this new, terrible knowledge.

He didn't know how long it lasted. It felt like it took years to get through the storm in his mind.

When he finally calmed enough to think, he found himself in the narrow, hidden stairway leading up to April's kitchen. He laid his hand on the knob, then bit his lip in doubt. What time was it? Was it too late – or too early – to be creeping into the humans' home?

Mike thought about going back to his own home, and shuddered.

He turned the knob, silently.

…

"Yeah, he's here, Raph," Casey shrugged as he looked at April, the phone tucked between his jaw and shoulder. "He's okay – sleepin' it off, whatever it was. You guys need him right now?"

April's mouth tightened, but she made no move to intervene. Casey was grateful for that – she'd been at wit's end, to find the Turtle grieving on the couch when she woke up in the morning. Mike hadn't spoken to her at all, beyond a few garbled assurances that the rest of the family was okay. It took hours to calm him down and unwind him to the point that he'd drink the chamomile tea April brewed, but after that he was out like a light. He barely made it to the guest bedroom before dropping into a deep sleep.

Casey glanced through the heavy curtains. It was almost fully dark outside. "Yeah, sure, come on over if ya want. But Raph – ya don't have to take Mike home or anything, okay? He can stay with us for a while. S'no big deal." He couldn't tell, over the phone, what Raph intended. Casey needed to lay eyes on his friend before he could read his mood.

"What's going on?" April's voice was tight with worry.

Casey dropped the phone onto the kitchen table. "Dunno. Raph's comin' over. I figure maybe we'll have a beer or two and talk, y'know?" He looked at her apologetically. "Guy stuff, an' all."

She smiled, and the whole room suddenly seemed lighter to match her mood. "Okay. I know when I'm not wanted," she dimpled. She was relieved, Casey could tell – relieved that she didn't have to be the only person to deal with the problems facing the rest of their family. He knew how she felt. It was good, better than he even hoped it would be, to have someone to watch his back. Not just when he was out in the dark alleys at night, but even for the more mundane stuff, the day-to-day, "real life" stuff that still took him by surprise sometimes.

"Thanks, babe," Casey wished suddenly that they weren't expecting company.

"Don't call me 'babe'," she warned, and twitched out of the room with a smile.

Casey sighed happily. This whole 'living together' thing was working out better and better every day.

When Raph finally showed up, he was tense and unhappy. But to Casey's eye, he wasn't on the verge of anything physical. The Turtle was still a few aggravations away from needing the challenge of "bustin' skulls". He nodded, satisfied, and handed his friend an open beer. "What's goin' on, Raph?"

It took a long time to pull the story out of the reluctant Turtle. When he had the whole story, at least to the point where Mike bolted from his home in the middle of the night, Casey let out a low whistle of dismay. "Oh, crap…so now Splinter thinks these dreams are really important an' all?"

"Yeah. But it's not like we can do anything with 'em, y'know?" Raph glanced in the direction of the closed bedroom doors again. "Even if Mikey…well, even if he'd been totally open to it, Splinter don't know how to use that to find Don. And even if he did…man, Mikey thinks Don's dead, now."

"Mike already thought that, though," Casey frowned at the level in his beer bottle, and decided against a refill.

"I dunno…" Raph sighed and pushed himself back, driving his shell deeper into the couch cushions. He fixed his eyes on the action movie that played out almost soundlessly on the TV.

Casey did the same. It was "a guy thing", he'd told April. They needed the mindless and improbable violence of their favorite movies to distract them, so they could talk. Otherwise, it'd just get too real. Embarrassing. She'd nodded, clearly amused, and said nothing else.

He wondered if she was listening.

He wondered if Mike was awake.

Something occurred to him in the near-silence. He rolled it over in his mind, testing it for serious flaws. It was the sort of thing that could spark Raph's ever-ready temper, if it was handled wrong, and Casey really needed his friend to listen to him.

"I wonder if, maybe…maybe Splinter's really just hurtin' too bad to be thinkin' right. Know what I mean?"

That earned him Raph's sharp focus, for a minute at least. Then the Turtle looked away without saying anything.

It was an encouraging sign. Sort of. Casey went on while he had the chance. "What if Splinter was right the first time, and he's wrong now?" Casey pointed out. "I mean, I only got the one kid, and she's pretty tiny, but if she disappeared one day, I think I might go out of my mind just a little bit at a time, myself. What if he's been sitting down there in the tunnels, brooding on it, and just kinda…makin' himself crazy with it? He wouldn't be the first, y'know," he added hastily. It seemed like near-blasphemy, to even hint that Splinter wasn't perfectly rational all the time. "And then this thing with Mike…maybe Splinter's just grabbing at straws, y'know?"

Raph grunted, which didn't really tell Casey anything. He still didn't look up from his thoughtful focus on the car chase scene.

Casey let it rest for a minute before coming back to something that felt important to him. "This whole thing, it's gotta be harder on Splinter than anyone," Casey raked his hair back out of his eyes and pretended he wasn't keeping an eye on Raph's reactions. "I mean, you guys are close and all but…Donnie's his kid. Havin' him disappear like that, that's pretty close to hell for a parent. Look, I've only had Shadow around for a couple years, but if something happened to her….man, it'd destroy me." Reminded, he went to check on the baby.

Raph had transferred his thoughtful stare to his empty beer bottle by the time Casey came back. The tension around his mouth had deepened over the last hour…but it hadn't spread to his neck and shoulders. Casey was relieved. As long as Raph wasn't tensing up, he was still listening.

"You guys don't like to think Splinter might not be right, every now and then," Casey observed. "That's a helluva lot of pressure to put on a guy. I mean, he can't just take his time and figure stuff out, y'know? He can't even change his mind, 'cause it means he was wrong before." He shook his head, and repeated, "Helluva lot of pressure."

"Yeah," Raph said thoughtfully, drawing the single syllable out. He sighed and set the bottle down.

They watched the rest of the movie in silence.


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

He was awake for a long time before he realized it. There seemed to be no difference between the sleeping and waking states – in both, he was in constant, if ill-defined, pain. And in both, he appeared to be trapped in a nightmare.

The dreams were the most familiar. For an interminable time, he thought that the dreams were real, because they took place in the Arena itself. In his early dreams, a youngling ran across bloody sands, screaming in terror.

He woke, and contemplated the bright lights above him before sliding back into the dream-Arena. This time, his mind dredged up better terms to apply to the youngling: _human, female…_though she still ran, shrieking, in front of her own impending death.

Waking gave him images of people Doing Things to him. He didn't know what they were doing, exactly. He only knew that it hurt. He grumbled and tried to pull away from the Things That Were Being Done.

Someone whispered soothing words. The voice caught at his mind – who was that? A brother?

Did he have a brother?

Still wondering, he went back to the familiar terrors. This time, he understood more of his own thoughts. The youngling was a "little girl", and her name was…was… he frowned in his sleep. She was important. She _mattered_, to him. He didn't know why.

There was time to figure it out. There was all the time in the world, in fact. He was in no hurry, couldn't imagine why he'd ever be in a hurry to do anything. He turned aside from the nightmares, all the nightmares, and fell into soothing darkness.

He swam up out of sleep again, to see that the lights were dimmed. For the first time, he was aware that his feet were held in something. It should have concerned him, it seemed. Moving his feet hurt, though, so he stopped.

He couldn't remember if "feet" were permanently attached, or if he could replace them with something else. He thought they must be detachable. Certainly there was a disconnect between one of them and the rest of his body, it seemed.

The lights were too far away. He frowned, and considered that.

He could move his arms…not that he wanted to. There were ugly tubes attached to them. That made him frown, too – it looked cluttered. Untidy. _Someone should clean that up,_ he thought. His fingers slid across something slick and vaguely wet.

That hurt, too, so he stopped.

He went back to the Arena again.

The little girl had blond hair, he finally understood. Blond hair, like that of her mother. Not like that of her…what?

He knew he had to save her. He ran out onto the sands to put himself between her and whatever, whoever, was chasing her.

The sands tripped him up.

He fell, and the sand rushed up to claim him, to drag him under.

The little girl screamed one last time, high and horrible and hopeless, as she was captured. He'd failed, failed completely, been too caught up in the sands and in his own confused thoughts, to be able to save –

"Shadow!"

He wrenched himself out of the nightmare in the same moment that he recognized it for what it was.

Waking was only marginally better.

Everything hurt. His hands scrabbled for purchase in something thick, dense, and moist-feeling – it took another full minute to realize that he was actually imbedded in the gel. _I've turned into a dessert,_ he thought in irritation.

His brain obligingly sparked off images of gem-colored gelatin molds with assorted fruits frozen in their centers.

Really, it was impossible to think past the ridiculous images! In his head, the green dessert started jiggling.

This struck him as hysterically funny. It hurt to laugh – it hurt to breathe! – but he was consumed with the image of himself as a piece of some kind of unlikely-colored gelatin mold, and couldn't shake it. _Shake it! Hee!_ He wondered if he could jiggle, too –

The act of trying made the darkness come back and smother him. This time, he fell into sleep without nightmares.

…

_A dark line appeared on the horizon. He wondered if it was land. _

_He wondered if he should care. _

…

He knew he was in pain long before he woke up. It was a curious feeling, the pain – it meant he was still alive – but it was remote from him. Almost like it belonged to someone else.

Did it?

There was a nagging sense that he'd forgotten something very important. He turned that over in his mind when he could find room for it. The pain was sneaky – it crept into the gaps in his attention and his memory, pulling his focus back to it with every breath.

There seemed to be a lot of those gaps.

He didn't mean to open his eyes. He sighed with regret when they opened without any conscious effort on his part.

The lights were still there. How curious. He thought that it all must have been some kind of dream. The lights weren't what he expected to see, though he couldn't quite dredge up the memory of what he had expected. The pain coiled around his fuzzy thoughts, pulsing insistently at his attention, and he let it fill in the space where the memory should have been.

The lights, now…they held his eyes. A clustered ring of smaller lights, grouped in threes. He considered the dim lights for a long time. At least, it seemed like it was a long time. But time didn't mean anything anymore…did it?

Silver metal edged the lights. His fingers twitched, then, at the memory of holding metal. In his mind, the metal edge slid, warm from the light nearby, under his fingers as he traced it.

_Warm…_

His hand wavered, came up out of whatever imprisoned it. He was cold. He wanted to be warm, again. Had he ever been warm? Had he ever held metal, already warmed by something else, in his hands? He couldn't say.

An image flashed across his mind (_heavy steel, warm and slick with blood_) and was gone before his fractured attention could seize it.

His hand floated up, toward the lights. One shaking finger traced the outline of the cluster, even as his eyes were drawn to something else altogether: the crude tattoo on the back of his hand.

For one second, he remembered _everything_.

_I've got to get out of here!_ Even while he thought it, the memories fell away, dropping in fragments into the vast swelling of pain that defined him. Only partial memories remained, tiny pieces of what he'd known. From those pieces, he was able to assemble only one clear idea: a sense of urgency.

Driven, suddenly, he felt for the edges of whatever imprisoned him. Some kind of firm gel, or goo, met his questing fingers. Tubes and wires snarled around his arms as he finally reached the edges of the yielding surface on either side, and found something more solid to take hold of. He took a deep breath, and pulled himself up.

Blackness flickered on the edges of his vision with the effort. The pain rushed in again, remorseless as the tide, and he almost sank back again.

He wanted to cry, to scream, with the pain.

He didn't think either one would help, so he didn't.

He closed his eyes and let his head fall forward. Breath rattled harshly in his throat as he tried to stave off the encroaching blackness.

After another timeless moment, he summoned the strength to open his eyes again. He blinked. _That doesn't make any sense…_

His legs were embedded several inches into the thick gel. The right knee was wrapped in some kind of brace. Tubes and wires went into the brace. The exposed flesh just on the outside edges of the brace looked swollen and painful, as far as he could tell through the gel. He couldn't be sure.

_Come to think of it, I can't feel that,_ he realized. He let go of the right-hand rail of his bed with an effort, and prodded experimentally at the gel that lay over the knee.

Kaleidoscopic colors flashed behind his eyes. His mind seized up, convulsing at the pain, and shot nightmare images out in all directions. He jerked, gasping, and clung to the left-side rail to keep from falling.

_Bad idea, bad idea, bad idea,_ he thought, once he could think again. He shivered. The pain had a locus-point, it seemed, and he'd found it.

The urgency wouldn't let him give up and pass out again, though every nerve screamed for it.

His scope expanded past the bed. For the first time, he realized that he was in a room he'd never seen before. The tubes and wires led to machines he'd never seen, either. The soft light showed him the outlines of another bed, not made of gel, and the faint shape of the sleeper it contained.

More important, it showed him the door.


	14. Chapter 14

_I wanted to thank everyone who has left a comment, or added my story to a Favorites list. It means a lot to me._

_The whole reason I started posting this story was to inspire me to write more, and now that we've passed the halfway point on this one, I need to get to work on the sequel! You guys are keeping me motivated, and I appreciate it._

**Chapter 14**

"…third escape attempt!"

"Why does he think he has to 'escape'?"

"It's getting ridiculous…"

…

The darkness wasn't as thick, this time, but it still smothered all thought and will. The voices came and went. He didn't understand anything else they said.

There was a voice in his head, most of the time. It whispered soothing things to him, sentiments without words, things that were meant to calm him and stop him from fearing the unknown things that happened to him when the darkness rolled over him.

He wanted to trust the voice – it was in his head, after all – but he couldn't.

The lights were too bright. His eyes watered even though he'd barely cracked his eyelids open. His hands were too heavy to bring up to shield him from the light.

There was someone beside him. "Shh, shh, it's okay. You're safe, you're alright…" A hand touched his head. He turned in the direction of the touch before he even realized it. He hurt too much to think who this person was, and he couldn't see to confirm his reflex. But the sense of comfort was familiar. How long had it been since anyone _comforted_ him…?

And he had to rely on that when he felt the edge of a cup press into his lip. "Drink this – you need to drink this, it's good for your system, it's okay…"

He drank.

He fell into darkness again.

…

Later, he counted four or five of the odd, almost-waking intervals. It was hard to be sure, since he was still heavily drugged every time. But when he woke, the same calming voice was there. And so was the cup of what he finally identified as a very weak juice of some kind.

He was still thirsty after he'd downed the cup. It surprised him – he couldn't remember the last time he'd felt hunger or thirst. Now he felt both.

The light was still too bright. He squinted against it, trying to see where the cup had gone, and if he could get it back. He brought his hand up to shield his eyes.

"It's okay, shh, it's okay," the voice sounded more hoarse than he'd remembered it. He tightened his squint and looked in the direction of the voice and the hand that had captured his own.

He was too tired and too weak to pull away in fear when he realized that he didn't know this person after all.

"Do you think maybe you could try _not _escaping this time?" the man continued with a wry twist to his mouth. "It seems to panic everyone here, and it hurts you."

Donatello cast about in his memory, looking in vain for any recollection of escape attempts. All he remembered were escape _intentions_, and those weren't quite the same. And after each one…well, there was only the darkness, and the blinding pain.

After a long minute, the man asked, "Do you remember me?"

Don stared at him wordlessly. Why would he remember...? An image floated slowly to the surface of his tumbling memories: _a sword-point, pressed into a dirty shirt…_

"You," he began, then stopped, appalled at the graveled weakness of his own voice. _You were the man in the Arena._

"Yeah, I was there," the man shifted uncomfortably. "You were going to kill me…I think."

_Yes, I was._

The man hunched away. "Thought so…" he mumbled.

With a slow thrill of horror, Don realized that the man was hearing his thoughts.

It was too much.

This time, he deliberately sought out the darkness.

…

His brain started working before his eyes opened. _I can't ever go home again…_

"Why not?" someone asked from the other bed.

Don sighed and turned away even while his eyes opened of their own accord. He turned his thoughts resolutely from the family he'd failed. He wouldn't share any more of himself with this stranger; he was too tired to feel properly outraged that even his thoughts weren't his own anymore.

A rustle of sheets and movement, then. He felt a presence beside his gel-bed. "I'm Brian," the man offered uncomfortably after a long minute. "I don't know...we're in some place, I don't know it. These people, they call themselves Utroms…they say you'll remember them. Do you?"

Unbidden, Don's mind conjured up images of the first time he'd encountered Utroms.

"Huh. You do, I guess…" the man trailed off again. He seemed to be waiting for something.

Don slowly realized he was supposed to respond in some way.

He didn't want to. He couldn't imagine wanting to.

He decided, at that moment, that he wanted nothing more than to lay there and look at the lights, and to definitely _not_ think.

The hum of white noise filled his mind. He let it – the non-sound was soothing. It didn't want anything from him.

"You were…I saw some of your dreams. Pieces of them, anyway," Brian shifted again in his chair, restless and unhappy – it leaked from him into Donatello's mind, and neither one of them seemed to be able to stop it. At least, Don couldn't stop it – he didn't know if the man was even aware of it. "You keep having nightmares about a little girl in the Arena. A little _human_ girl, too – who is she?"

Don didn't answer. He didn't let himself think about the child he'd once called his niece. He didn't let himself think about the family that surrounded her. It was the only safety he could give them – to keep them as safe as possible from someone who could apparently see into his thoughts.

It was a violation that even the Triceratons couldn't have inflicted on him.

The man sighed. "I guess it doesn't matter, but…I thought you should know, 'cause maybe you'll have fewer nightmares if you do: girls never go in the Arena. Well, females of any age. Triceratons don't – what? What is it?"

Without meaning to, Don found himself looking at the man in horror. _They… don't?_ It all made a horrible, maddening kind of sense, all of a sudden. A whisper of a remembered voice told him: _Your females are safe…_

He shuddered as the enormity of it all crashed on him.

_It was all a waste, anyway…_

He started to laugh, weakly, at the irony and tragedy of it all. At least, it started out as laughter. Before too long, though, it turned into howls of grief, for his needless pain, his pointless endurance, and most of all: for his lost sense of honor.

The darkness wasn't thick enough to cover it, anymore.

…

Try as hard as he might, he couldn't quite manage to stay asleep after that.

His mind wouldn't stop racing. In the drugged half-sleep that was all he could manage for long stretches of time, he thought about what he'd been told. How females never, ever went into the Arena – how had he missed that crucial detail? How did he never notice that there were no females in the population under the tunnels?

Or had he been lied to, again?

That was the question he really couldn't answer. And it was the question that couldn't be silenced, in the long grey times between what he finally recognized as medical attentions.

It was hard to recognize the passage of time. Yet time must have been going by, because he found that he could think around the pain in his knee and his feet. He couldn't move yet, of course – though he'd tried again, more than once, only to stop when it all hurt so badly that he couldn't breathe – but he was starting to think again.

He cursed himself for ever having stopped, because it was so hard to start again.

It was after one of these failed attempts to escape his bed, again, that he made the conscious decision to try to trust the man he found at his bedside most of the time. It finally occurred to him that, in spite of his repeated attempts, he'd never woken up in restraints. Surely they, whoever _they_ were, had to know that he'd keep trying? And yet, they didn't think to tie him to the bed. In fact, there seemed to be some sort of unspoken agreement that he should be building his strength. This person – Brian? – pressed juice on him, and talked to him, and kept him from panicking when the dreams were so bad that it seemed like he would die if he couldn't get up and fight something, anything, right that moment. So he decided to bide his time, and trust Brian's care, and wait for further events to tell him if he'd been right or wrong to do so.

Besides, he told himself fatalistically, it wasn't like it was the first time he'd blindly trusted someone who didn't have his best interests in mind.

He couldn't imagine that anyone else would ever have his interests, best or otherwise, in mind again. And that was the curse of starting to think again: he started to remember more and more of what he'd done.

Utroms came and went during his waking times. Utroms conferred near his bed, in whispers that his translator couldn't pick up. Utroms asked him, repeatedly, if he wanted to go home.

He only stared at them, stony and silent, and after a while, they stopped asking.

…

It took a long time for him to understand why Brian never seemed to leave his side.

"I can hear _your_ thoughts. Not everyone else's thoughts," Brian explained one night, after the nightmares were particularly bad.

Don shivered and wished that he could stop hearing _his own_ thoughts, for just a while. The waking knowledge that Shadow wasn't in danger, had never been in danger at all, didn't have the slightest impact on his nightmares. If anything, the horrors he saw in the dream-Arena only grew more intense as time went on.

Brian draped a blanket over him, carefully avoiding the last of the tubes and wires that adorned Don's knee. The Turtle clutched the soft fabric around his shoulders and wondered at the sense of comfort he drew from it. "Yeah, I wish you could stop, too. But anyway… apparently my people, all the people on HomeStation, are part of some kind of super-long genetic experiment." He sighed. "Gods, this is all so complicated! I just wanted to get off-planet, and maybe see a few things in the universe! Y'know? I didn't know about any of this genetic stuff. I didn't know about Utroms…"

Don snugged the blanket up around his shoulders and tuned the man out. Brian had been saying something like this for days now – apparently he needed to work his thoughts out by saying them out loud, and it was getting on Don's already raw nerves. He craved silence. He craved the white noise of his own resolute attempt to feel nothing. He craved…blankets? It suddenly occurred to him that he'd been so cold, for so long, that the blanket was literally the best thing he'd touched in months.

He brought a fold of the blanket up around his ears, and curled up as tightly as the gel-bed would allow. The Utroms had explained the gel to him – it was a combination of physical healing, in that the gel kept his broken feet immobilized, and chemical healing, since it was laced with antibiotics, anti-inflammatory drugs, and local anesthetics that were absorbed through his skin. Don had a feeling that he would have been lot more interested in the whole concept, once upon a time, but for now it was just more noise that he had to filter out.

He was so tired of noise…

Brian was still talking when Don fell asleep.

He was still talking when Don woke up, too. This wasn't unusual. Brian talked all the time – to the Utrom physicians who came in, to the older humans he'd casually identified as his parents, to Don himself. But this time, the recipient of his restless stream of conversation was someone Don recognized. "Professor Honeycutt?" he rasped.

The robotic body swiveled immediately in his direction. "Ah, Donatello! Good, good – you're awake!"

"He's a lot more coherent in his waking moments than he was a few – "

"I wonder if you could give us a few minutes to talk privately?" the Professor suggested. He put one hand under Brian's elbow and steered him toward the door. "I'll come out once I've had a chance to talk with Donatello, that's right…"

"But it's not like there's any privacy that way," Brian looked doubtful. "I can hear his thoughts – "

"Perhaps you could try those mental exercises that Dr. K'zal taught you? Yes, I think you should work very hard at those…" He chivvied Brian out the door. The robotic hand shot for the controls beside the aperture, and closed it as soon as the man was clear. "_Honestly_," he muttered, in tones of exasperation that carried clearly to Don's ears.

Donatello struggled upright. "Professor…" he said again, his voice a harsh croak in his own ears.

The robotic face couldn't convey expression, of course, but the Professor's manner was kind and solicitous. "Dear boy, don't strain yourself! Here, drink this juice…there. I'm so sorry that it took me so long to get here, but I was on the Outer Rim when I got the most extraordinary vid! Someone asked me if I knew you – apparently you've caused quite a stir here, in the Medical wing. They didn't look in the right place for you – the Classifications team thought that they'd accidentally found an entirely new species! People were gearing up to go look for a planet full of people like you."

"But…they know me. They've called me by name…" Don cast his mind back for a memory, and once again came up blank. "Or…did they?"

"Oh, probably they have, in the last few days. Bear in mind, Donatello, that the Utrom collective is a huge place. And some of the projects, like the one that took that pod of Utroms to your home planet, aren't as well-known or well-connected to the research facilities as they should be. But I set them straight as soon as I heard you were here."

"So those Utroms who wanted to know," he had to pause for a drink, to clear his aching throat, "if I wanted to go home...?"

"They were trying to determine where your planet was – they were mistakenly searching for a planet of reptilian life forms, like yourself!" The blank metal face didn't change, but the tone of voice was amused.

Don wrapped a fold of the blanket around his hands and fidgeted nervously. "So…no one's told my family?"

"Not yet – once I gave them some information, they decided to wait until I could talk to you. Apparently I'm the closest thing you have to an advocate, or family member, here." He glanced back over his shoulder at the sealed door. "Except for Brian and his family, of course."

"About that…" Don didn't know what to ask. The whole thing made him feel dirty and off-balance, and he didn't know how to change that. "I don't – he can read my mind!" he burst out, distaste clear even in the hoarse scratching of his voice.

"Yes, well…dear boy, you have stumbled into the very heart of something so very complex and important to the Utroms that I can barely wrap my mind around it. Brian and his people – all of his people, the entirety of HomeStation – are the descendants of a large group of refugees from your planet, from Earth itself.

"The Utroms are a very long-lived species, of course. And they've advanced far beyond the capabilities of almost every other sentient species out there. But they are just as curious, and just as driven by the occasional bad idea, as we are. Well, I mean, as humans are." The Professor couldn't blush, but managed to convey his embarrassment just the same.

"Apparently, the Council of about 3500 Earth-years ago decided to begin an experiment that would take several millennia to complete. They began looking around for species that might, with the right sort of guidance and direction, evolve into a people more like the Utroms themselves. One of those species was located on Earth.

"They discovered an island community, one that had a great deal of established culture, and determined that there was an active volcano at the heart of it. They were able to disguise themselves and persuade most of the population to leave with them, due to some immediate dangers posed by the volcano."

Don laid down again and watched the Professor with sleepy eyes, the blanket wrapped tightly around his torso. The story seemed so familiar – he yawned while he tried to remember…

"So for the last 3500 years, the Utroms have been supervising the lives of those refugees, and their descendants. They do it very remotely – the vast majority of the members of HomeStation have never heard of the Utroms – but they are carefully shaping these people. They are desperately trying to evoke certain mental abilities in these humans – the biological history of the Utroms indicates that they developed great mental capabilities, and these were the traits that allowed them to begin making great strides forward, scientifically and culturally.

"Brian, and a bare dozen other people from HomeStation, have the faint traces of something that might be those mental abilities. He's a very valuable person to them. And about ninety days ago, he simply vanished."

Don took a second to be wistful over this idea.

"Apparently he snuck onto a freighter from off-planet, with some intention of living a vagabond life. The Utroms, and Brian's own Family Council, were frantic to get him back, but he was nowhere to be found. And then his bio-sign finally turned up – in the worst possible place. The Triceraton Arena."

The Professor sighed. "It was a tricky thing, to get there in time. The Utroms and the Triceratons try to ignore each other as much as possible – there are too many eons of entrenched cultural differences for them to have any common ground right now. So diplomatic channels were not possible. Brian would simply have to be extracted, and quickly. But as soon as the Utrom ships were in range, another complication appeared – according to the scans they were able to make of him, Brian's latent telepathic and empathic abilities had been activated."

"Oh. This is where I came in," Don realized.

"Yes. Apparently the physical trauma and stress of facing his own incipient death caused Brian's abilities to manifest. And he seized on the most likely person around – you." The Professor's voice went solemn. "Donatello, I have to ask you – were you truly planning to kill him?"

"Kes had to kill, to keep his family safe," Don said, smothering another yawn.

The Professor brought his face closer to Don's heavy eyes. "Kes? Who is Kes?" he asked gently.

"Kes was me," Don explained. "They took everything away – my bo, my family, my honor, even my name – and they told me to do what they said, or my family's females would die." He shuddered, and let his eyes drift closed. "Professor…are they okay? Please tell me they're okay. It's only worth it if they are…"

"So there were extenuating circumstances…" the robotic voice went remote and thoughtful.

_Yeah…extenuating…_Don thought. He couldn't summon the energy to stay awake.

His last thought, before falling asleep, was the bitter realization that the Utroms hadn't known or cared that _he_ was in the Arena at all, and that he'd only been saved because of his unwanted bond with Brian.


	15. Chapter 15

_Sigh – It's a little early to do this, but I made a promise to myself, and if I can't keep the promises I make to myself, then who will? _

**Chapter 15**

Splinter listened to the not-silence in the lair, and wondered if he could do what he meant to do. It was going to be difficult. Leonardo and Raphael had gone out for a few hours – perhaps they knew, better than he, what he meant to do? – and he knew that his window of opportunity was small. There were few chances to have the kind of conversation he meant – no, _needed_ – to have, and still have the conversation remain private.

With a sigh, he stood from his meditation mat and went in search of Michaelangelo.

In the weeks since Michaelangelo's dramatic late-night departure from home, things had been strained between the Rat and his three sons. Michaelangelo was remote, aloof, rarely speaking unless spoken to…lost in whatever dark thoughts occupied him. Leonardo and Raphael were tense and on edge, waiting for either their father or their brother to do something – anything – to breach the wall that seemed to divide them. It made the entire lair seem dark and oppressive. Splinter was at a loss as to how to undo the damage he'd done when he blurted out his suspicions that Michaelangelo had, indeed, been in contact with Donatello, months after the latter's supposed death.

Michaelangelo's persistent nightmares had dried up abruptly after that night, lending credence to the idea that he had, indeed, been in some kind of contact with his missing brother…and that the contact was now forever severed. Splinter had more than enough time, and enough silence, to meditate on his own foolishness in failing to recognize the contact when it was going on. And even the realization that he couldn't have used such nightmares to locate his missing child didn't do a single thing to ease the pain caused by the irrevocable loss of that child.

In a break with his usual habits, the Turtle was being quiet. That, combined with the Rat's own heartache, meant that the Master found his son in the last place he would have looked for him: in Donatello's room.

He stood in the doorway and simply watched for a long moment, struck by how much Michaelangelo eerily mimicked his missing brother's habitual pose as he sat at the battered desk, absorbed in the contents of a spiral notebook. The pages turned with the crackle of old paper as Michaelangelo went on reading whatever it was that held his attention, and Splinter simply stood there, watching his son and wondering what he could say.

But it was Michaelangelo who finally broke the silence. Without looking up from his reading, he said, "It's one of Donnie's notebooks. From when we were kids – he was always writing stuff down, back before we got the computer. Remember?"

Splinter nodded, then realized his son really couldn't see him. "I remember," he said aloud. _I remember that he was often absorbed in his notes, constantly changing and amending them, in those days. I remember when I found our first computer – and how he stopped writing so much on paper, preferring his electronic records. I remember that the notebooks never went away, though, not completely…_

He stepped into the room, just a little bit. He felt uneasy, like he was violating Donatello's privacy. The very thought was a painful as a knife – _the dead have no need for privacy_ – and he paused to catch his breath around the surge of grief. When he was sure he had his voice under control again, he asked, "What…what was he writing about, in that one?"

"Dinosaurs," and Michaelangelo glanced up, just for a second, with the flash of white teeth. "This must've been when we were about five or six. His spelling's not so great, and he went back and corrected his 'Ankylosaurus' at least three times, but…yeah, this is when Don first went dino-crazy." He chuckled a little bit, reading over it. "It's funny to see it happen. He went from being a little bit scared of them – see, this first entry is all about how scary dinosaurs would be – to being all nuts about them, in about a week. And after that, he's got all kind of facts that he musta copied out of some old science magazines or something. I don't think he could've understood half this stuff, when we were kids…hell, I don't understand half of it now, all this stuff about _genera_ and _phylum_, and _binomial nomenclature_…"

"He was always quite a bit ahead of the rest of us in his reading," Splinter commented dryly. He wrenched his thoughts firmly away from the idea that they were talking about Donatello as though he were in the past – easier to think that they were simply talking about him as though he were away for a while. _Grieve later,_ he told himself, _there will be time to grieve later…_He was aware that these were more words than had passed between himself and his normally talkative son in weeks, and he was determined not to waste the opportunity.

"Yeah, he was," the Turtle responded sadly. His shoulders slumped a little bit. He turned a few more pages without pausing to read them. "I guess I never realized…Donnie really did notice a lot, back then. Here's notes about us, about all of us talking about Christmas. He figured out the whole 'Santa Clause' thing really fast, didn't he?"

"He pretended that he didn't know, because he didn't want to spoil it for you and your brothers," Splinter added, remembering.

"Figures…" Michaelangelo shook his head, a rueful smile on his face. "I was crushed enough when I did figure it out a few years later. I guess it would've been worse if Donnie'd just told me about it when we were that young." He closed the notebook with a sigh. "I can't bring myself to go through the really recent notebooks yet," he told his father, the smile slipping from his face. "I can't – can't do it yet. This old stuff's okay, because it's so long ago, it's almost like it happened to different people. But the notebooks from the last couple of years? Nope, can't touch 'em yet," and he actually did touch the notebook in front of him, running his fingers along the bent spiral wire and tattered pages with a gesture of surprising gentleness.

Splinter was struck by the idea that Donatello's childhood notebooks represented 'so long ago' to his son. After all, the events encompassed in them were only fifteen or so years earlier! It seemed like such a short time…

"You were all so young, the first time I sent you out to test your skills," he remembered out loud. "Some street gang or other…I was certain your skills would be up to the challenge. I told myself that I wasn't worried. I told myself that you were all, each one of you, a match for mere street-thugs. But still, it was such a relief to have you all come home that day, whole and unwounded.

"Then, I sent you against the Shredder. And while I was certain of your skills…I was also certain of Saki's skills. I knew it would be a close match. I sat here, in the dark, and waited for you to come home. I tried to tell myself that I was strong enough – that we were strong enough – and that honor was enough of a reason, if I lost one or all of you that day. I tried to convince myself that dying in battle against Oroku Saki would be enough of an honor, if it destroyed such evil…"

This wasn't the conversation he meant to have, he was aware. But the words, once started, didn't seem to stop. "I wanted to believe that it was enough. That I was strong enough to face the loss of one or even all of my students – my sons – if it meant that Saki paid for his crime. And I sat here in the dark and realized exactly how unconvinced I was, once it was too late and you were all too far away, alone against the Foot Clan."

Michaelangelo started to speak, and Splinter held up a hand. "The greatest joy and relief of my life came that night, when all four of you came through that door again. Wounded, yes, but mostly whole, and all alive. All four of my sons, still alive…it is a memory I will treasure forever."

He paused, and looked carefully at Michaelangelo. "It taught me much about what the four of you were capable of, but it taught me even more about myself. And I knew I could never simply sit here, in the dark, and wait to see what would happen the next time I sent you out. The idea of losing one or all of you…it was more painful than the memory of my master's death.

"And now I have lost one of my sons…" the pain was back. He willed it down. "I have lost him, and I don't even know how. I didn't send him out. He faced no danger that I know of, and I have never found his body to count the wounds on it. But he is gone." The ache of that loss was almost unbearable, a tearing hole in his spirit that no amount of meditation, acceptance, or honor could ever heal. "And I am…very much afraid of driving away my remaining sons, in my grief." There, it was said – the thing he really wanted to tell Michaelangelo the entire time.

"Sensei…" the Turtle seemed at a loss for words.

"We have spent too much time apart, grieving separately," Splinter said urgently. "And I have been guilty of this as much or more than anyone. Please, my son – we cannot face this loss alone."

The flat shine of tears in Michaelangelo's eyes, just before he dashed them away with one fist, was proof that he'd finally cracked through the Turtle's reserve and silence. It was enough, for the moment.

…

"Concentrate!" Brian urged.

"I _am_ concentrating!" Donatello told him through gritted teeth. _Gods, what I wouldn't give to be able to get out of this bed and wring his neck…!_

"Then how come I can still hear you thinking about strangling me?" Brian questioned reasonably. "C'mon – I don't like this any more than you do. Things'll be a lot better for both of us if we can keep our thoughts to ourselves. So…concentrate!"

Don half-snarled a curse, and closed his eyes, sinking into a meditative state as fast as he could. It was harder than it used to be. The constant murmur of the machines around him, not to mention the near-total pain of his feet, did a lot to shatter his fragile grip on the calm needed to clear his mind. He pulled into himself, shutting out all distractions as much as possible.

It took several tries.

Brian wisely stayed silent the rest of the time, when Donatello broke out of the attempt, cursed under his breath, and dove back in again. And again. And finally, just before he was about to declare the attempt a failure, Don found himself sinking deeply into his own mind. He would have sighed with relief, if the very act of doing so wouldn't have interrupted the meditative state he'd worked so hard to achieve.

From Brian's mind came the sense of 'wall', and Don seized on it. A brick wall, a sturdy one, like the rough bricks of the underground tunnels…he imagined it in detail, building it higher and tighter in his mind, sealing himself away from unwanted contact, and sealing Brian out. A blank and endless wall, a comforting surface to keep his mind his own –

"Hello, boys! What are you doing?"

With a gasp, Don shot back to full consciousness again, arms automatically coming up defensively.

Brian blinked owlishly, a frown forming on his face. "Mother…?"

"It's getting late! I was worried, when you two were so quiet for so long – you didn't answer my calls," she said reprovingly, indicating the blinking light on the table nearest Brian's bed.

"We're a little busy, Mom."

"It's time to relax. Besides, I have good news!" Brian's mother, Lyss, was a bright-voiced woman with a tendency to speak in exclamations. "We've been speaking to Professor Honeycutt, and the Family Council. Don, dearest, this is important – can you stay awake just a little bit longer?"

In reality, Don had closed his eyes in an effort to get his heart rate to calm down after the startling interruption. He realized – not for the first time – that he didn't do very well with surprises or interruptions anymore. He was simply too jumpy, and it only got worse as he recovered physically. He knotted his trembling fingers together under the blanket and slitted his eyes open at Lyss. "Sorry," he mumbled, to keep up the illusion that he was about to fall asleep.

"Oh, I'm so sorry to have to keep you awake! But really, this is so important, and so exciting! The Family Council has reviewed everything we could find about you in the Utrom databases, Don, and talked to the Professor. They understand that you were in the Arena under duress! They saw your evaluations and all kinds of things, and they finally agreed! Donatello," she swooped down and laid one hand across his shoulder, "I'm going to be your mother!"

All pretense of sleepiness fell away. "What?!"

"It's true!" she trilled. "They're going to let us, Gerard and I, adopt you! I'm so excited – non-human adoptions have never been allowed on HomeStation! But with Brian being what he is, well, we can't simply let him wander off, and it would be cruel to separate you two. So you're going to come live with us!"

"I…already have a family," he reminded her, cold suddenly in a way that the blankets couldn't warm.

"And now you have a new one," she smiled. "One that can take care of you a little better than you've been taken care of up to this point."

The trembling crawled up from his fingers and into the rest of his body. "I already _have_ a family," he said again, because it seemed impossible that she could so casually dismiss the people he'd fought and bled for.

"Yes, and we're going to have to speak to them," she frowned a bit, and tucked the blankets in around him more firmly. He tried not to flinch away from her touch. "Apparently the Professor doesn't think very highly of this adoption. He's going to Earth – and how funny is it, that you're from the some planet we're from? It did a lot to make the adoption idea go down easier with the Family Council, let me tell you – "

"The Professor is going to talk to my family?" he gasped and sat up, struggling away from her touch. Brian hovered at the end of the bed, frowning.

"He's already gone. He took Gerard with him. They want to talk to this Splinter person, and make sure he understands that he's got no claim to you anymore…what's wrong, dear?"

There were no words to explain the enormity of what was wrong. He couldn't breathe, suddenly – his family was going to know what happened! They were going to know about him, and the enormous loss of honor, and the crushing stupidity that he'd allowed to rule his life for months. He could picture it. He could imagine it with such clarity that it was like it was happening in front of his eyes: Splinter would be ashamed of him, would turn away from him, for the severity of his crimes against the family's honor.

He knew what he had to do. Don glanced up and saw Brian still there, still standing watchfully at the end of the bed. Concern, and even a little bit of fear, leaked from the man's thoughts and into Don's mind.

Donatello ignored Lyss' continued nattering, ignored his own sudden panic, and focused all his thoughts on one word: _wall_.

Brian's thoughts stopped leaking, though his frown deepened.

Don didn't care. Safe behind his inner wall, he began making his own plans.

…

It was late by the time they gave up the pretense of 'an exercise run' and turned for home, but Raph's feet were dragging with more than exhaustion. He didn't want to go home – it was as simple as that. Weeks of silence, with Mikey moping around, and Splinter in a near-daze, after months of anxiety and grief over Donnie…it was getting to be too much. For a brief second, or even less, he had a flash of anger for his lost brother. _Damn you, Donnie, for doing this to us!_ he thought. And then he shook his head, irritated at himself for even thinking it.

Leo glanced back. "You okay?"

"O' course," Raph grunted, willing to extend his irritation outward to the nearest brother. "You think I can't keep up with you?"

Leo didn't answer, turning his attention instead to his own feet as they jogged back through the tunnels. Raph sighed and let the mood slip. He didn't really want to fight with Leo, anyway. It was just one more thing that seemed to have disappeared from his life in the last few months – the simple cycle of "pick a fight with a sibling/blow off steam" – and he missed it, in a weird way. It wasn't that he wanted to fight with Leo, or Mike, or anyone else. He just wanted to feel like things were _normal _again, or as close to normal as they ever got.

"I wonder if Mike's still up," Leo said as they reached the hidden door of their home. "I could go for a snack or something…"

Raph frowned. It was so subtle he almost missed it, that hint of wistfulness in his brother's voice. Clearly Leo, too, was wishing things could be the way they were before – it was always Mike's habit to insist on a snack after a hard exercise run.

He was still trying to come up with a good answer to that when Leo pressed on the bricks that opened their disguised door, and Mike's laughter pealed out to meet them.

Only years of training themselves to caution kept them from freezing in the tunnel and allowing the sound to continue to spill out into the echoing tunnels. They rushed inside and closed the door as fast as the heavy brick would allow. "Mikey?!"

"In here!" their brother's cheerful voice – his _normal _voice – sang out. "In Donnie's room!"

Wondering, the pair made their way down the little hall, only to stop short in the doorway.

Notebooks lay scattered around Don's desk, notebooks that Raph knew hadn't been touched in years. Someone had pulled the sheets and blankets off Don's bed, and rolled the mattress up. Splinter sat on the rolled-up mattress, laughing at some story that Mike was telling him.

Splinter. Was laughing.

Raph shook his head in wonder. "What's goin' on?" he tried to keep the question casual.

"And then," Mike went on with his story without pausing to catch them up, "Donnie goes stomping across the living room, and he's dripping these pink paint spatters _everywhere_! And everybody is really quiet, 'cause he's _pissed off_, and we can all tell it, right? And he turns around and gives us all this death-glare – only Donnie never really could manage a real good death glare, and now he's covered in pink paint, and it's really hard to take a death glare seriously when it's pink anyway – and he says, he says," Mike straightened up and tried to imitate Don's voice. It was a difficult thing to do, since Mike was stifling his own laughter. "He says, 'Not. One. WORD!' And he slams the bathroom door so hard that the plaster cracked, only we didn't know because we all just busted up right that second. Honestly, I think he'd've come out and killed us all, if April hadn't been there. He couldn't beat her up for laughing at him, after all."

"No," Splinter agreed, still laughing.

Raph felt the corners of his own mouth twitch, too. He'd almost forgotten that story – how Don had fallen through a skylight and into a vat of pink paint, then had to come home covered in the stuff.

"Hi, guys!" Mike said brightly, looking at his brothers for the first time. "Good run?"

"Yeah, I think it was," Leo's expression gave away more than he probably realized, as his face lit up at the sight of his father and brother actually talking and laughing. "What're you doing?"

A shadow crossed Mike's face and was gone. "Um. We thought we'd, maybe, start cleaning up in here." He gestured around the room at the crowded shelves.

And it hurt, to see the space that had once been Donnie's reduced to a casual "in here"…but it needed to hurt, so they could start to get over it, Raphael reflected. Aloud he said only, "Sounds good. Me and Leo are gonna have a snack, and then we'll come help."

"Snacks!" Mike was on his feet. "I'll make it!"

"Aw, crap, he's gonna do that thing with the peanut butter again," Raph realized. He gave chase. "Mikey! No peanut butter!" He hated peanut butter, and Michaelangelo knew it and delighted in tormenting him with it.

And somehow, the whole thing – coming home from a run, finding his family, being tormented by his brother – felt like it was _normal_, at last. It wasn't perfect – far from it – but it was just the way it needed to be, after all the months of pain.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16**

_He tumbled in the red surf, so close to the shore that he could practically touch it. The waves pushed him forward, pulled him back, and made him dizzy with their tumult. He didn't know what to want, anymore. Could he live on the shore? Would the waves carry him back out to the deeps, if he let them?_

_Sand brushed under his outflung fingers and toes as he tossed in the blood-waters. _

"Okay, one more time…"

Don took a deep breath, adjusted his grip on the crutches, and took up the painful task of re-learning to walk again. _An improvement over the wheelchair,_ he told himself, willing away the pain in his left toes as he used them to steady himself along_, at least it's an improvement over the wheelchair…_

It had been a busy two weeks since the Professor and Gerard left on their errand. Don felt the time going by like a countdown in his head: _two weeks to get there, two weeks to get back…_It should have been plenty of time for him to put his plans together. In fact, it _would_ have been plenty of time, if not for the actual injuries and the need to re-habilitate from them.

He was exhausted all the time, as much from his own efforts as from his body's need to heal. He pushed himself hard. Though he ultimately believed it was a waste of everyone's time and effort to get him on his feet again, he still had a tiny, stubborn spark of pride that wouldn't let him face his family from a wheelchair.

Brian had finally had to remove the hated wheelchair from the room because Don spent so much time casting baleful looks at it that it gave them both a migraine. The crutches had appeared immediately thereafter, over the worried objections of Lyss and at least one of the Utrom doctors who supervised his healing.

The crutches weren't ideal for his purposes. He'd prefer to go through with his plans while standing on his own two feet. But the doctors weren't sure he'd be able to bear his own weight on the prosthetic right knee anytime soon, if at all, and he really didn't have time to waste. _Two weeks to get back. _He had no doubt that they would come. He would, if the situation had been different and it was one of his brothers who had disappeared. _Two weeks…_

Brian's thoughts and expression took on a doubtful cast, and Don wrenched his thoughts away from his time line. _Wall,_ he thought, once again taking refuge behind a mental barrier. _Rough brick walls, solid and sturdy and more than a century old…_

The encouragements Brian offered took on a note of uncertainty. "If you can manage the whole room on crutches, we can get out of here – won't that be a nice change?"

_Yes. Nice,_ Don thought, and smiled grimly. Two weeks. He had two weeks left to finish laying his plans.

He hoped it would be enough time.

…

In the two weeks since they'd started cleaning Don's room out, they only made sporadic progress, though it was finally starting to look a bit bare, Leo thought as he walked past the open doorway on his way to the dojo. The naked bed lent a strong sense of emptiness to the room.

Mike had claimed the pillows and a blanket from the bed. No one was really surprised when Raph filched one of those pillows away from him in the middle of the night. Mike made no secret of his possession of the items, openly curling up with Don's discarded blanket. Raph, on the other hand, never said anything about his "theft" of the other pillow, and no one seemed to know what he had done with it.

As for Leo…he'd boxed up the journals and notebooks that bore his brother's scrawling handwriting, and carted them off to his room to think about for a while. He didn't yet have the heart to read any of them.

He put the thoughts of Don aside and bowed to Master Splinter as he entered the dojo. "Good morning, sensei."

"Good morning, my – " Splinter's greeting was cut off by the harsh jangling of the phone. He sighed, and continued, "Good morning, my son."

The phone kept on ringing.

"Who's calling us this early in the morning?" Mike wondered as he entered the dojo behind Leo and gave Splinter his own bow. True to a lifetime's worth of training, he had ignored the ringing phone in favor of getting to practice on time – Splinter did _not_ look kindly on interruptions or delays!

"Telemarketers, prob'ly," Raph yawned as he entered. "Hate 'em," he added, without any real heat. Raphael had a low-grade, free-floating hatred for just about anything at that hour of the morning.

They fell into position and began to move through simple warm-up routines.

The phone kept on ringing. And ringing.

"Telemarketers'd give up after four or five rings," Raph grumbled aloud.

"Raphael! Concentrate on what you are doing, and do not let yourself be distracted," Splinter admonished.

The phone kept on ringing.

Leo wondered why they'd never bothered to install an answering machine, though he kept it to himself. They simply didn't get enough phone calls to make it worthwhile, and the few people who did know how to reach them by phone knew not to try during the hours set aside for practice – or would have the sense to give up after twenty-five rings!

"…twenty-six…twenty-seven.." Mike murmured, keeping count.

It was probably the counting that finally sapped even Splinter's focus. "Leonardo. Please deal with the phone." His tone made it clear that he didn't care _how_ Leo dealt with the instrument – just that it needed to stop, and stop _now_.

Leo bowed and dashed out. He grabbed the receiver off the wall while still debating exactly how much grief he was going to give the persistent caller – only to come up short at the sound of the voice that overrode his curt greeting.

"You guys need to get up here. You need to get up here _now!_"

"April?" He had a fleeting second to think that she, of all people, knew better than to call during practice, but her next words riveted his attention.

"There are two men standing in my living room. They say they know what happened to Donatello!"

Leo dropped the phone into its cradle without another word. He raced back into the dojo. "We gotta go. Now." He looked at Splinter. "April's got company – they say they know what happened to Don."

Two breaths later, and they were out the door. Splinter led the way, moving faster than his sons had ever seen.

…

_Patience,_ April reminded herself, _is a virtue._

Then she took a deep breath, re-folded her arms, and reminded herself again. She could navigate the tunnels to her friends' home, on an average day, in thirty minutes. From listening to them talk, it appeared that they could make the same trip, at a run, in ten. She eyed the clock. It had only been three minutes since Leo hung up.

_Patience is a virtue,_ she told herself again, and willed the clock to go faster anyway.

Her visitors shifted uncomfortably. Her gaze flicked over them, and returned to the clock. She'd burned up all of her hostessing skills and good will when they'd refused to give her any further information about Don, and she wasn't inclined to engage in idle chit-chat. Especially not when they were clearly holding back on telling her the only thing she wanted to know. _As soon as Splinter gets here,_ they'd said, and would say no more.

She wondered if they were from the government. Her friends had deep-rooted fears of being caught by vaguely-defined government agencies, and who could blame them? But if the men were from the government – and were sitting in her living room so calmly – then surely this was too blatant to be a trap?

She hoped.

The clock moved slowly, slowly, past the six-minute mark…

At seven minutes and thirty seconds since her phone call, Splinter burst through the hidden door in the kitchen. The three Turtles followed on his heels.

The two men stood as the ninja entered the room. One man looked exceedingly uncomfortable, April noted, while the other one…the other one looked oddly blank, like his face was frozen.

"Where is Donatello?" Splinter said, in a voice like steel.

The uncomfortable man jumped, and grew even more awkward looking. He glanced at Splinter and away, then repeated the action. It was as though he couldn't look at the Rat for long without hurting his eyes.

The blank-faced man answered for them, "He's in the hospital wing of an Utrom vessel in permanent orbit around the base known as HomeStation."

Excitement rippled out through the Turtles, through April. Splinter, though, seemed oddly unmoved by the words, even suspicious. "He is alive?"

"He's alive at the moment, yes."

She gasped. "Is that a threat?" _Did I just call my family into a trap?_

"No, no, of course not!" the blank-faced man raised his hands in a gesture of conciliation. His expression still didn't change. "Oh, dear, I didn't mean – "

"Professor Honeycutt?" Mike's voice cut across the rising babble. "Is that you?"

"Let me explain – " the blank-faced man fumbled with something on his wrist – Leo and Raph tensed – and suddenly the man's face and hands shimmered and disappeared. In his place was…a robot. Wearing a suit.

April blinked. "So…that's Professor Honeycutt?" She'd heard the stories, of course. But the reality was something completely unexpected, especially when that reality was sitting in her living room.

Confusion reigned all around for a few minutes, as hasty introductions were made and everyone situated themselves along new lines, based on this surprise. Splinter took the heavy armchair, with its commanding view of the living room. Leo stood behind and to the right of his father, while Mike and Raph moved with casual grace to opposite sides of the room. April had lived with them long enough to pick up on what they were doing: Leo and Splinter made the most obvious target, while Mike and Raph were spread out just enough that no one could keep all four fighters in view at once. If a threatening move were made, it would immediately be countered on the assailant's blind side. She made sure to stand off to the side, out of the potential line of friendly fire but still in position to see her guests.

"Er, yes, Donatello is alive at the moment," the nervous man said, as everyone was getting settled.

"And who are you?" Leo took the lead in questioning. They made a formidable pair, April realized. Splinter's gaze was dark and sharp on the newcomers, assessing them in ways they couldn't realize, while Leo – his father's right arm in this, as in so many other things – probed for information.

"I'm Gerard, of the Family Dolphrates. I want to talk to you about – "

"Have you come here from the government?"

"Er, yes, but…that is, I represent my own Family Council, on HomeStation. That's our governing body," he added, by way of explanation. "They've given their approval to my petition to adopt Donatello. We've come here to discuss this with you."

"You want to adopt my brother?" Leo let the faintest hint of outrage color the question before moving on to something more urgent. "Then why did you make it sound like he was threatened?"

"Threatened?" Gerard gasped. He fumbled for words. "Threaten – no, no, it's just…he was dead, when he came to us. He's alive now. That's what we meant: he's alive now."

"Hm." Leo didn't shift expression in the slightest. "What do you mean, he was dead when he came to you?"

"I can show you – " Gerard reached into the pocket of his coat.

The Turtles tensed.

April spared a second to be grateful that Casey had taken the baby with him while he ran errands, and wasn't home; she felt the adrenaline spike through her.

Splinter didn't move.

Tensions didn't ease even when Gerard withdrew a flat grey box of some kind from his coat pocket. He laid the box on the coffee table. "I thought you might want to see this…" he touched a button on the side.

The techno-geek in April came to the surface, and she craned her neck to observe as the little box cast a light upward. Movements and colors coalesced in the air about a foot over the box, deepening in color and intensity until they formed tiny, three-dimensional images of people. People who were clustered around a table, working with a sense of urgency on –

"Donnie," Mike whispered.

She blinked, and suddenly _saw_ him: Donatello. In the center of the clustered people, blood-soaked and struggling weakly against the grips of those around him. Donatello, pale and bruised where he wasn't bloody. Donatello, thinner than she remembered him, and obviously losing some kind of fight for his life.

April didn't understand a word of the language being spoken in the tiny scene, but there was no mistaking the urgency that suddenly gripped everyone. Orders were shouted, desperate moves were made…and it was useless. Before her very eyes, Donatello…died.

He died.

She heard a choking sound, and felt wetness splash onto her clenched hands.

Gerard glanced up. "Well. It wasn't permanent." He touched another control. The scene sped up. Donatello was left alone on the table – and he was so _clearly _dead, so clearly no longer inhabiting the battered flesh in the scene, that it felt like someone had punched her in the stomach – while fast-moving figures flashed in and out of view around him.

Peripherally, she was aware that Mike, closest to her arm, had stopped breathing while he took in the scene. On the other side of the room, Raph's eyes were wide and fixed, a peculiar stillness on his face.

She didn't dare turn her head to see what might be in Splinter's eyes at that moment.

"Here we are," Gerard murmured, and slowed the scene back down to the speed of life. "It took a little more than seven minutes, by your time…" In the tiny scene, Donatello lay still. His eyes were nothing more than dark spots in his empty face, open and staring into nothing – and then he gasped in a great, whooping breath. His entire body jolted as though he'd been thrown.

The breath rushed out of him in a scream of fury, and he lashed out, even as the medical personnel crowded around him again.

Gerard touched the little box, and the scene disappeared. "So you see… he _was _dead."

Mike stirred. "Did you see that?" he said softly, in tones of wonder. "Did you see…?"

Raph nodded. He straightened up, a look of pride coming across his formerly blank face. "I saw it," he confirmed. A smile played in the corners of his mouth. "Came up fightin', didn't he?"

April dared to look at Splinter and Leo then, and saw the same expression on their faces, too. She felt a tiny grin creep across her own lips.

_Alive…_

She couldn't keep it in. She turned and grabbed Mike in a hug, just to have someone to feel the joy she felt. He laughed against her shoulder, squeezing almost hard enough to make her ribs creak. "He's alive!" he sang, and made to waltz her around the couch. "Alive! And still fighting!"

"You see, Honeycutt? Do you see?" Gerard demanded abruptly. He turned to the robot body and made a short gesture at the family. "_This_ is what I'm talking about! This can't be healthy. And it can't be sane!"

"You've just shown them a rather emotionally significant scene," the professor objected. "I hardly think that it's an accurate indicator."

"They think there's something glorious about _fighting_," Gerard sneered. "I can't do it. I simply can't sit here and act like sending him back to this barbaric life is even an option!"

"Splinter is his parent – "

"Yes, and look where that's gotten him," the man spat. "Don was in the Triceraton Arena, all because someone thought that his fighting skills were the only important thing about him – "

"It wasn't his family's decision to send him there, as I recall," the professor cut in. "The story as I have it is that he was kidnapped."

"Yes! Kidnapped. And why? Precisely _because _he's a fighter. Don't you see?"

"What do you mean, the Triceraton Arena?" Leo asked. "What does that have to do with Don?"

Mike unwrapped himself from April and moved to stand between her and the guests. "And what's this about you not sending him back?"

The joy evaporated out of the room.

"I don't even know why we had to do this," Gerard said, in the tones of someone who was continuing an argument of long standing. "He's a minor by the standards of my people, he's already at HomeStation. I don't need anyone else's approval – "

"You're quite wrong there, I'm afraid," the professor's mild voice took a hard edge. "You _do _need someone else's approval: mine. I am still Donatello's advocate, in the absence of his family, and _I_ must give my approval to the High Council before the adoption can take place."

"You wouldn't dare send him back to this!"

"I will do what I think is best, as always," Honeycutt answered.

"Professor – " Leo began.

"Yes, yes, you are quite right, Leonardo. Gerard has started his story in the middle, for some reason. Let me tell you what I know of the last few months…"

For the next hour, he spoke. He told them of the terrible, false bargain that was made with Don. He told them of the Turtle's gradual rise and fall in the Arena's hierarchy, and the toll it took on his body and spirit. He told them of the Utroms, and their long experiment, and Don's accidental triggering of the very ability that the scientists had sought. He told them, in great detail, of the injuries Don suffered in the escape attempt.

No one interrupted, even to question him.

Finally he wound down the story. "…So the Family Dolphrates wants to adopt Donatello, in order to keep Brian safely at home."

Splinter gazed at the little grey box. April shuddered. The scene of Don's death was still vivid in her mind, too. "And what does Donatello think of this?"

"Well. He has told Brian, several times, that he can't come home again," Gerard said stiffly. "Honestly, I don't know why we had to bother with this – "

"You offer to take my son away from me, and you think telling me is a bother?" Splinter's eyes flashed. Behind him, Leo glared daggers at the man. "You tell me that my son is wounded, body and mind, in ways that stagger the imagination, and then you tell me that this is of no concern to me?"

"Why did we come here?" Gerard twisted around to plead with the professor, trying futilely to deflect the Rat's piercing eyes and words.

The professor crossed his arms and stared down at the man. The robotic face couldn't convey the thoughtful tone that was clear in the voice. "I came here…because I promised Donatello I would see that the females of his family were safe. And I came here because I wanted to assess for myself if your conclusions about Splinter's parenthood were correct, before I give my approval for this adoption."

"He trained his sons to fight and kill," Gerard spit out.

The robot head nodded slowly. "I can see where it would look like that, to you." He straightened up and dropped his arms to his sides. "Master Splinter. I must ask you, in accordance with the legal traditions of HomeStation: will you give your consent to this adoption?"

Splinter looked less fiercely at the professor.

April waited confidently for the rejection that she was sure would come.

Silence stretched out in the room.

Mike's hand fumbled for hers, and suddenly she wasn't so confident. Why was it taking so long for Splinter to say that one little word – _no_ – and why did she suddenly fear what he would say when he finally spoke?

At last, the Master stirred to respond. Slowly and carefully, he said, "I will give my consent to this adoption if, and only if, my son tells me to my face that he wants this."

"I hoped you would say something like that," Honeycutt said. Relief colored his words. "I think you've made the right decision…"

"What decision?" April broke in, baffled. _Did I just miss something…?_

"We're going to this HomeStation place, to get Donnie ourselves," Raph translated for her. He glowered at Gerard.

It happened so quickly after that. The ninja, all four of them, declared themselves ready to travel right that moment. Gerard threw up his hands in disgust, but had nowhere to stalk off to in a demonstration of his displeasure. The professor, Splinter, and Leo fell into a brief but animated discussion about the upcoming journey. Mike and Raph presented a united front against Gerard, who stood stiffly at the window with his back to them.

"Are you coming with us, April?" Mike questioned over his shoulder.

"Me?" she felt a pang of regret. "I can't, guys. Casey'd freak if he got home and I was gone. Besides, somebody's got to hold down the fort and stock up on groceries while you're gone."

Abruptly, she found herself in the middle of a hug. "We'll tell him you're okay," Mike whispered.

And then they were moving, getting into position for something out of science fiction. She felt like everything was moving too quickly, and there were still so many things to work out! "Leo!" she called.

He turned to look at her, a mild look of questioning on his face.

There simply wasn't time to get her thoughts in order to figure out what to say. "Just…bring him home, okay?"

He flashed a grin at her.

And then they were gone.


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17**

"This isn't exactly what I was expecting," Brian grumbled as he climbed out of the transport. He turned back to help Don navigate his crutches out of the plush depths. "I thought we were going home!" he said pointedly to his mother.

Lyss shrugged without meeting his eyes. "Brian, dear, you know this is for the best. We need a place where you can be alone for a while, until we can lay the groundwork for re-integrating you into society – and for introducing Don – and until we can establish some frameworks for your new knowledge." She did turn, then, and give both of them an arch look. "And you know exactly what I mean."

Don didn't know what she meant. Moreover, he didn't care. He looked around with puffy, tired eyes.

There wasn't much to see. A tiny, low house spread out before them, looking impossibly clean and new and short to his New York City-trained eyes. Behind it, he could hear the pounding surf on the beach that Brian had pointed out before they parked the transport. And around the house, there was…nothing. A lot of nothing, in fact. Don craned his head around in all directions, and found no other sign of any kind of building.

"Yes, it's isolated," Lyss met his eyes briefly as she wrestled with a bag of some kind. "That's the point. You boys need some time to rest and recuperate, and this is the perfect place to do it."

Brian sighed, and took the burden away from his mother with one hand. "You mean, this is the perfect place to keep us locked up and quiet." He seemed resigned to it, judging by the emotions that were leaking out of him.

_Wall,_ Don thought again, and turned away. Whether it was the hospital or some deserted house on a chilly beach, it made no difference to him.

Later, he dozed on a chaise in the big central room of the house while Brian and his mother fussed around in the kitchen. The simple act of walking from the transport into the house exhausted him.

He woke at Lyss' soft call of his name. "Don, honey?" She held a list in her hand.

Don stifled a groan. Lyss was fond of making lists of things – the most recent, and annoying, was an extensive list of clothes she felt Don needed before he could be seen in HomeStation society – and most of her lists seemed to require some input from him. "Hm?"

"This one, dear," she pointed at the first thing on the list. "I know you said you really need this, but – "

He woke up enough to focus on it. "Yeah, I do. I know it's not easy, but…I really _do _need that. It's just…it's like something familiar. Comfortable."

Lyss looked doubtful. "But it's dangerous…?"

He gave her the one-sided smile that was the closest he could manage. "Yeah, that's why it's familiar."

"I just don't know…" she pursed her lips and looked over the list. "I suppose it's part of your cultural heritage, so I'll do what I can. But honey, you have to promise me that you won't carry it around in public. Please? It's the sort of thing that will make people nervous."

"Lyss, you have my word that I won't take that tanto out in public at all," he told her with perfect sincerity.

…

"I am so bored!" Mike announced to the room at large.

Raph and Leo exchanged a look, and didn't rise to the bait. Their brother had been announcing his boredom at roughly one-hour intervals for days, and they were as tired of his boredom as he was.

_Maybe we shoulda taken a few minutes to pack,_ Raphael thought. It wasn't the first time he'd thought it over the last four days, and he was certain that he'd think it many more times before they finally reached their destination.

"Tell me again why we couldn't just get zapped there, like we did the first time?" Mike threw himself onto the low bench that doubled as a bed and reached one hand out to Leo. "You understand it, right, Leo?"

Raph grinned at Leo. "He's talkin' to you this time. I'm off the hook."

Leo groaned and rubbed his forehead like he felt a headache coming on. "Okay, it's like this," he said finally. "The transmat beam that took us all the way to D'hoonib was really intended for things like cargo. It's not supposed to be used for living organisms. We survived it because we're already pretty sturdy, but no one really thought we would. Not many people can. Utroms use a different technology to move living beings. It's sort of like a series of really small, short transmat beams, moving us along a little bit at a time."

"But we're still pretty sturdy!" Mike protested. "Why couldn't we go on ahead, in one of those big transmat beams?"

"Y'know, maybe Donnie can explain it to you in more detail when we catch up with him," Raph cut in. He'd heard Leo try to explain it at least twice a day since they left home, and he was probably as tired of it as Leo was.

Mike grumped, and turned over onto his shell, propping his feet up on the wall. "Wish we'd brought some cards or something."

"You don't have enough money to make it worth playing poker with you even one day, much less for two weeks," Raphael pointed out. "And Leo can't bluff at all – no fun playing against somebody who can't bluff."

"What makes you think I can't bluff?" Leo protested.

"You totally can't bluff," Mike agreed, craning his head back to look at Leo upside down.

"I wish I'd brought a couple of books. Maybe a notebook," Leo mused.

"Nuh-uh! Don't go down that path," Raph warned. "Seriously. We've played the 'Stuff I Wish We Packed' game a hundred times already, and I am about sick of it."

Silence fell over the room that the three brothers were sharing on the Utrom ship. Mike drummed his heels on the wall, but fell silent at a sharp look from Leo.

"I'm bored!" Mike burst out finally.

…

During the long trip, they had no choice but to cross paths with Gerard several times a day, in the common room of the tiny transport. Raph spoke to him as little as possible – the insult implied in Gerard's attempt to adopt Donatello still rankled – but Mike's boredom eventually led to some grudging conversations.

"So…whatcha doin'?" Mikey asked around the mouthful of apple he was finishing after dinner one day.

Gerard glanced up from something that looked suspiciously like a laptop computer. "Er. I'm catching up on some work from home."

"You've got internet on that thing?" interest sharpened Mike's tone. He tossed the apple core into the waste recycler and moved closer. "Can I see?"

Raph was both amused and irritated to see Gerard flinch slightly.

"Internet? Um…I'm connected to my network at HomeStation, if that's what you mean." The man gave every impression of being torn between showing his screen to the curious Turtle, and hunching over it protectively. "In between each jump, I get a transmission packet from home, so I can keep up with what's going on at home, and keep up with my work."

"Really? What do you do?" Mike turned on the charm with the question, giving Gerard his full attention and a winning smile.

"I'm the Education Coordinator for the Underage, for my Family Council." Gerard softened slightly. "I have to make sure that all of the children in our Family get the best education that they can, and that they are correctly trained to take on adult responsibilities."

"So you're a teacher?"

Raph tuned it out at that point. At least Mike was temporarily amused and – more important – leaving Raph alone, and that counted for a lot. He wasn't really interested in anything Gerard had to tell them about his so-called "HomeStation", and the conversation seemed to be veering that way. But eventually Gerard said something that caught his attention again.

"…there's been some discussion of asking all of you to stay on HomeStation with us," Gerard had apparently really warmed up to Mikey, and was sitting with the posture of a man talking to an old friend. "Our Family Council is asking other Families to review the information we have on you – "

"We could live in the open? Like regular people?" Mike broke in. "Are you serious?" His eyes shone as he glanced over at Raph and Leo. "Did you hear that?"

Leo, Raph saw, had gone profoundly still. He had apparently been listening more intently to the conversation than Raph had been. At Mike's question, he stirred. "Live on HomeStation?" he repeated.

"Well, there would be some legal issues to work out, of course," now the man went stiff and uncomfortable, reminded of their lingering – and rightful, Raph pointed out to himself – animosity toward him by Leo's sharp gaze. "But after those were settled, there's no reason you couldn't live freely, as accepted members of Families."

Leo wasn't swayed yet, Raph could tell. But Mike was caught up in some blissful dream. "We could be out, with people!" he wove his dreams outloud. "We could go to parties, and to the park, and even…hey, we could even have jobs!"

Gerard started to thaw again at Mike's open enthusiasm. "Well, of course, you would have jobs when you reach your majority – we'd have to do some aptitude testing, to see what would be the best fit; no one is assigned to work for which that person is unsuited – "

"I'm more interested in this 'transmission packet' you say you're getting every so often," Leo cut in. "If you're able to communicate with your people back home, can we talk to Donatello?"

"Er. Um," and Gerard's body language shut down so completely that Mike cast a startled look at the man. "I have – that is, my spouse tells me – apparently she moved both Donatello and Brian to a retreat location, far outside of communication range. It was for their own good!" he said desperately, though no one had moved or made a threatening gesture. "They both need some time to heal, and to be properly trained so that they don't give away the secrets about Utrom oversight of HomeStation to the public at large. You understand that this is a profound secret, the biggest secret of my people's existence! Very few people know about it, and they are all well-established adults with Council positions. To have this kind of knowledge in the hands of mere younglings…it could be disastrous."

"Hm." Tension tightened Leo's shoulders and lent something dark to his level gaze. "So basically you are telling us that we can't get in touch with our brother, and we just have to trust you that he's alive and well, much less in your custody?" His tone made it clear that 'trust' wasn't exactly what he was feeling at the moment.

Mike looked uneasy at the picture Leo was painting for them.

Gerard, though, was apparently so very unsettled by the weight of their eyes on him that he packed up and fled the room as quickly as possible.

"Damn it, I was hoping he'd leave the computer," Leo shook his head in disgust. "I can't get near anything that remotely looks like a means of communication…"

Raph cracked his knuckles. "I could always just tackle him for ya, if ya want it that bad," he grinned.

Leo grinned back. "Don't think I haven't thought about it. I'd give a lot to be able to get a message to Don."

Mike got up and came to sit next to his brothers again. His expression was troubled. "Leo…do you really think Donnie won't be there when we get…wherever we're going?"

"It's gonna be okay, Mike," Leo slung an arm across his brother's shoulders. "If Gerard were lying – if Donnie were really dead or gone, but they'd gone to all this trouble to make us think he wasn't, then he would've had a fake message or something. He wouldn't've been that obvious."

"I dunno. The dude doesn't strike me as a master of stealth and subtlety," Raph pointed out. "Might be a good kind of decoy, if they wanted to get us off-guard."

"I won't be off-guard until we've got Donnie back, and are back at home," Leo said quietly.

Raph didn't need to be reminded of that.

…

Splinter touched a small control on the little grey box, and the scene re-wound. Another control, and it began to play again, at normal speed. He watched in mingled pride and horror as Donatello fell in the Arena, an open wound spilling blood down the side of his head…and then got up again.

For more than a week, he had been locked away in the tiny cabin with the vids of his son's torment. It awed the Master to realize exactly how much footage there was, exactly how many fights had taken place. It frightened him, to watch the gradual progression of his son from the person he recognized – the person he'd last seen more than five months earlier – into a savage, almost mindless killer. And it stunned him to realize that Donatello had endured as much as he had, solely for the sake of a family he expected never to see again.

He grieved, for the psychic wounds he knew were not reflected in the vids, more than he did for the physical ones he witnessed.

But the physical wounds were horrific enough. He looked away from the vid and compared the injury to a picture Honeycutt had given him. It was a photograph, showing Donatello asleep in his hospital bed. The still-healing wound on the side of his head was clearly visible, along with other injuries.

Splinter put the photo down and closed his eyes, trying to calm and center himself again. Someone had done this, inflicted all of these terrible injuries on his child, and no one had been there to help him or even tend to his wounds – ! He wanted someone, anyone, to pay for what was done. He wanted someone to vent his own rage on, for daring to treat his child this way!

But the vids were proof enough that most of those responsible were no longer around to be punished. The hands that had wielded the weapons were forever stilled now.

And as for the hierarchy of the Arena itself…Honeycutt had been quite blunt that there was no time or inclination, on the part of the Utroms, to dismantle that hateful system. "Eventually, the Utroms will be able to influence Triceraton society," he had said quietly, sensitive to Splinter's barely-concealed anger. "But we aren't ready yet. Nor are they. Any contact between our peoples will surely degenerate into conflict. And more people will die." He had paused, then, and looked at Splinter with his blank robotic face. His voice was sad and thoughtful. "Isn't it enough, for now, that you have him back, alive and well? Isn't it enough to know that he can eventually recover, and be a part of a family again?"

And Splinter had wanted to argue, to explain, that no, it was not enough. It would never be enough, not until he had the throat of that Triceraton kidnapper between his own hands.

Instead, he had taken a deep breath and did not say it.

He touched the controls on the little grey box one more time, and the pictures faded. The box, and the photo of Donatello, went into a little bag that he knew the Turtles would never open without his permission. He couldn't bring himself to show the images to his sons. He didn't want to see the horror and the anger grow in their faces, as he knew it had grown on his, at the visible proof of their brother's torments.

There were some things that a parent had to keep to himself.

Splinter settled onto the low couch and slipped into meditation. He had to clear the memory and the anger before he could join his sons for morning practice.

…

_The blood-waters were shallow, now. He was more aware of the tide that rolled in and out. Sometimes waves broke over him, gentle at first but with increasing force as the shore came closer. _

_He didn't know if he wanted to feel the solid surface under him again. He wasn't sure he knew how to live in a world that wasn't made of liquid._

Donatello picked a careful path from the back porch of the little house down to the rocky beach. It wasn't easy, on crutches. He welcomed the difficulty – it took his mind off what he knew was coming. Or more specifically, _who_ he knew was coming, and what he would have to do when they arrived.

A cold wind blew in over the waves, and he welcomed that, too. The Arena had been warm and faintly damp – Triceratons were reptiles, after all – and the cold helped to calm the roiling memories of that terrible place. He loosened the fastenings of the jacket and the soft shirt that Lyss insisted he wear, and let the air flow over his heated skin. Just walking the short distance from the house to the high-tide line, a distance that his practiced eye marked out as less than a quarter of a mile, was such an exertion! He knew he would be embarrassed about the difficulty, if he didn't have far more important things on his mind.

More than ten days had passed since Lyss moved them into the little beach house.

When he reached the high-tide line, he turned and began the laborious process of getting back to the house. By his calculations, he would have just enough strength left to get up the small flight of steps and into the house itself before his protesting right knee gave out altogether.

The steps themselves, all five of them, were a new kind of torture. He gritted his teeth and concentrated on moving. As long as he could keep moving, he felt that things would be alright.

On the top step, he straightened up…and almost fell backwards down the steps again. In the attempt to right himself, he overbalanced and brought his weight down too heavily on the still-healing left foot. "Ah – !"

He bit his lip to stifle the cry, and breathed in deeply.

When he opened his eyes again, Brian stood in the open doorway. He offered uncertainly, "Do you need some help?"

Don shook his head, frowning. Brian faded back from the doorway, leaving the way clear for Don to hobble awkwardly inside. He threw himself down onto the chaise gracelessly, a mere instant before he was sure he would fall down, and then lay there, panting.

Brian tossed a blanket over him. Don clutched at the soft fabric, comforted by its weight. It was very strange, this sudden craving for blankets, and he wasn't sure he was comfortable with it. But something in him was soothed by the touch of soft fabrics, after so long in the Arena's tunnels without even a scrap anywhere in sight. He snugged the blanket around himself and decided that it didn't matter – it wasn't like his family would ever know about this peculiar new weakness of his.

"Mom came by, while you were sleeping this morning," Brian wandered back into the kitchen. Don wasn't surprised by this news. Lyss came by every morning to check on them, bring them groceries, and add to the growing stack of clothing that she was having created for Don. He didn't know how to tell her to stop that last errand without raising questions that couldn't be answered just yet. But Brian's next words riveted his attention. "She brought something that she said you wanted, special." He came out of the kitchen holding a wide, flat box.

Don held his breath as he opened the box, and then let it out again in a sigh of relief. His asked-for tanto lay nestled in a bed of blue satin, the complicated leather wrappings of the hilt and sheath a nice contrast to the slick fabric. He slid the knife free and examined it. It was even sharp!

"Perfect," he breathed. He sheathed the weapon and clutched it to his chest. "Thanks."

Brian shrugged. "Wasn't me. I just handle deliveries around here," and his grimace wasn't directed at Don, not really. He gathered up the empty box and made as if to stand up.

Don grabbed his wrist. "Brian. Seriously, I wanted you to know…I really appreciate all the things you've done for me." His voice was still raspy from long disuse.

Brian shrugged again, though he didn't try to free his wrist. "S'okay. I mean, we're kinda in this together now, aren't we?" He sat down and looked seriously at Don from his place on the floor. "It'd be nice if you talked some more. There's so much I want to know about your family, and about Earth!"

Don didn't doubt that. But he did doubt that he was able to answer questions on either subject. "Well, they're going to be here soon, and they'll have more current news than I will," he hedged. He let his eyes droop.

"Mm." Brian took the hint. "That reminds me – Mom said they're in range now. They should be on-planet by morning. She thinks she can get them out here by tomorrow afternoon."

"Oh," Don shivered, and shrugged the fabric up tighter around his shoulders. _It won't be long now…_

He wondered if he'd miss the touch of fabric.

…

Raphael wondered irritably why Michaelangelo only got more hyperactive when he'd had no sleep. "Would you calm the hell down?" he snapped at his brother.

"Sorry!" Mike chirped unrepentantly. He grinned at Raph from his handstand on the railing. "Am I bothering you? Huh?"

"You're not gettin' under my skin today, Mikey, so just stop tryin' it," Raph warned. "We got too much to do – "

"We're gonna get Donnie!" Mike sang, flipping onto his feet in one smooth movement, and then circling back onto his hands. "We're gonna get our brother back!"

Leo wasn't helping, Raph reflected. The "eldest" brother stood back from the others, a grin playing openly on his face as he watched Mike's antics. The sleepless night hadn't seemed to put a dent in his mood, either. The three of them had watched the satellite of HomeStation come into view, peppering Honeycutt with questions and random comments, all through the hours that they should have been sleeping. Even the knowledge that they'd have to spend several hours in a transport in order to get to the remote area where Donatello was staying hadn't done anything to dampen their spirits.

"I thought you said this was a satellite," Mike said to Honeycutt as the professor joined them on the walkway. "I was expecting something all mechanical, with hallways and stuff. But this is a regular planet!"

"It does look like one, true, but the planet is artificial," Honeycutt explained again. "It's careful maintained to preserve – oh, here's our transport."

"And there's my spouse," Gerard added. He grinned past the Turtles at a woman who raced up the walkway. "Lyss!"

Raph looked away as the man and woman were reunited, and made a face. He could hear the kissing sounds – it was more than he wanted to know.

"So you're Donnie's brothers!" the woman – Lyss – trilled at them. Raph flinched at her casual use of the nickname, but her next words caused him to look at her with unease. "You all look so…young, compared to him."

Leo's expression shifted, too. And Mike finally dropped off the railing in an unconsciously graceful move. He came to his feet and said quietly, "But…we're the same age…"

It was an awkward way to start their journey, made even more awkward when Splinter appeared. Their Master wasn't exactly thrilled to be introduced to the woman who made no secret of her intention to become Donatello's mother.

The entire group settled into a transport under a chill.

The Turtles took turns dozing, communicating their levels of sleepiness or outrage only by glances. Splinter sat ramrod-straight, and answered all of Lyss' questions with an icy formality. Honeycutt attempted to mediate between the two groups, but soon gave it up as a lost cause, and the seven of them fell into an uneasy silence that lasted for several hours.

At last, Lyss called, "We're here!"

Raph stirred and looked around blearily. _The first thing I'm gonna do, after we get Donnie, is crash and sleep for about twelve hours, _he promised himself. He yawned and stretched and tried to pull himself together. Mike bounded out of the transport as soon as the door was open. "Cmon, c'mon!" he called back to his family as he raced up to the low house. "Hurry up!"

"They won't be going anywhere," Lyss laughed at him. "You know they're waiting for us!"

"I wonder," Splinter said abruptly, "if you would let us have a few minutes alone with Donatello."

Lyss and Gerard traded a look of unease. "I don't know if that's…"

Raphael came fully awake with a sense that his blood was boiling. _I swear to god, if they say that Splinter can't see Donnie alone, I'm gonna take someone's head off – !_ Beside him, Leo stiffened. Out of the corner of his eye, Raph saw Leo's hands twitch with the same desire to inflict bodily harm on the pair, with their constant and thoughtless insults to Splinter.

Before things could disintegrate into violence, the wide front door of the house opened. Raph felt his breath catch in anticipation…but the person who stepped through wasn't Donatello.

"Um. Hi…go on in," the man smiled uneasily. From his tentative demeanor, Raph deduced that this was the 'Brian' they'd heard so much of. He wasn't impressed, and dismissed the man from his thoughts almost immediately, as Brian stepped out of the way – stepped outside, in fact, to forestall his parents – and let them in.

"Donnie?"

"In here."

And there was something _wrong,_ all of a sudden – something that set Raph's neck to prickling. The voice was wrong, for one thing – too hoarse, too broken, to be his missing brother. But there was something else…

Splinter led the way into the wide main room of the house. And there, silhouetted against a large open door that looked out over a rocky beach, was Donatello.

"Donnie!"

"Stay back!" he said sharply. One crutch came up in a warding gesture. Mike checked his forward rush with a visible effort.

Leo sucked in a breath over a small sound of dismay. Raphael wondered about it, while he took in his brother's appearance. Don looked terrible. Too thin, dark circles around his eyes, a tight look to his mouth that spoke of pain. He supported himself on crutches – Raphael wondered why he hadn't realized that Donatello would still be recovering from his wounds. It was hard to tell anything else, since Don was wearing a white tunic over white trousers.

White clothes…the sense of _something wrong_ only deepened.

Donatello bowed to Splinter as best he could, and gestured him to a cushion. Other cushions were arranged nearby, clearly meant for his brothers, but Raph ignored them, as did Mike and Leo. Mike glanced back at Raph, his eyes wide and nervous.

Don bowed again to Splinter once the Rat was seated. His left hand fidgeted with the hilt of a tanto that protruded from the white sash of his tunic.

When he began to speak, Raph was startled to realize that his brother was speaking, and had been speaking, Japanese. The formal language of their childhood, a language he never spoke except in moments of deep emotion…it made Raph shiver. All the pieces clicked into place, a moment before he actually understood his brother's words:

"Honored teacher and father, I have brought dishonor upon our family. I ask your permission to commit suicide, to atone for the disgrace."


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18**

He couldn't look at them while he spoke.

It was a strange realization to have, while in the very midst of speaking – almost like there was some objective, uninterested observer lurking in his head. He couldn't bring himself to look directly at any of them, and was actually aiming his words at the empty air a foot above Splinter's head. _I don't want to see what they think of me…_

He fought down the tremble of joy with an effort. That surprised him, too – the joy of having them in front of him, of knowing that they really were safe and whole. He'd thought he was far past the ability to feel anything like it. Distantly, that internal observer noted that facing his own imminent death must've done _wonders_ to heighten his emotions.

Don hoped that the internal observer would be quiet when the time finally came to kill himself. It was going to be difficult enough to adhere to the proper ceremony and steps if he was interrupted constantly by a voice in his own head!

A tense hush settled over the room in the aftermath of his request. Don could feel his brothers' eyes on him, silently demanding that he meet their gazes, but he held his own eyes steadily away from them. If he looked, he was sure he would see confusion at best, and hostility at worst, and didn't think he could bear either one. He _wanted_ to look at them. He wanted desperately to check them over himself, verify their continued health and wholeness – but already the strain of keeping himself upright was making his arms tremble. Both of his feet ached like the bones had been replaced with broken glass, and he wasn't sure he could overcome the gnawing pain in his knee long enough to sit properly on the floor for his suicide.

He really wished Splinted would give his approval already, so the whole thing could be over.

Their plastrons were too sturdy to allow the traditional ritual disembowelment. It was probably for the best, he decided in the silence – the latter part of the ceremony required the suicide to be beheaded, and Don preferred not to put any of his family through that. He could use the tanto to cut his own throat, or possibly to plunge the sharp blade through a joint in his plastron and directly into his heart. He wasn't sure yet which one he would choose. Either way, it would be quick. Moreso, apparently, than Splinter's decision.

He finally risked a quick glance at Splinter's eyes. The look of grief on his father's face almost knocked him over. "Sensei?" he said hoarsely.

Splinter stirred. "My son…do you truly wish to end your life?"

Did he wish it? Don shook his head once, hard, at the confusion the question triggered. Did he _wish it_? No, but it was what needed to be done, to restore even a scrap of honor to himself. "I – it's the right thing to do…" he trailed off in confusion.

"Why?" Splinter asked simply.

Don abandoned all detachment and just stared at the Master in shock. "Sensei, do you know what I did out there? Do you know how I behaved?"

"Yes," Splinter affirmed. "I've seen much of what happened to you in the Arena."

Donatello rocked back on his crutches and almost toppled over from the surprise. "You…you saw the vids?" _Then surely he understands…_

"And you already died once. I've seen that vid, too."

The sudden rage almost choked him. He couldn't remember the last time he felt anything so strongly. _"There's a vid of me dying?!"_

Splinter's whiskers twitched at the shout, but his reply was calm. "Yes. So you see, my son, there's no need to die for your supposed crimes. You've already died once for them."

"No," he couldn't breathe. "No, that doesn't count, and you know it."

"I know that we are ninja, and not samurai," Splinter said quietly. "I know that the samurai clans were prickly about their honor, and quick to demand suicide for even imagined faults. But ninja are more practical – our primary goal is to survive, so that we can continue to be of use to our clan. Our honor is not so rigid. Nor as punitive." He sighed. "However…if this is what you truly want – if you truly believe that you must die to restore a sense of honor – then I cannot stop you. It is not the choice I would make for you, and I do not want you to do it. But if it's what you feel you must do…"

Don opened his mouth to agree, to say that he _did_ feel he must end his life – but another voice cut across his. "If you do this, you won't do it alone."

He snapped his head around to meet Leo's eyes at last. "What – ?"

"If you do this, you won't do it alone," Leo repeated firmly. "I'm going with you."

Donatello actually felt the blood drain from his face at his brother's words. "You…"

"We weren't there. We couldn't get to you. But if there is any dishonor to be borne, it belongs to all of us." Leo took one cautious step toward Don, wary as if he was approaching a wild animal.

In turn, Donatello lifted one crutch off the floor and warded his brother away with it. He couldn't breathe around the sudden, choking fear, and damned the return of his emotions. It took an effort to get enough air to finally whisper, "You would make it all – everything I did, everything that happened – worthless!"

"It _is _worthless," Leo took another step forward, eyes locked on Don's face. He held one hand out cautiously. "It's all worthless, none of it means anything, if we're not a team at the end of it all. If we're not a family, once it's done." He took another step. He was almost close enough to touch the outstretched barrier of the crutch that trembled in Don's grip.

The walls were closing in on him. He thought, dizzily, that he'd never think of that as just a cliché again – it felt like the walls were actually pressing on him. Behind Leo, he saw unease on Mike's face, grim resignation on Raph's, and realized that they, in turn, would follow Leo's example. Horror at the idea overwhelmed him. "Get back!" he said sharply to Leo, bringing the crutch up again like a weapon. He had to get out – had to get away, get to someplace where he could _think!_ "Just…stay the hell away from me!"

He turned and plunged out the open back door as fast as he could.

…

"No." Leo blocked Mike's attempt to follow Don out the door. "Give him some space." His eyes tracked their brother as he hobbled away, too fast for someone on crutches, but still so slow compared to what he had once been capable of. Catching him would have been easy…and insulting.

"But…what if he…" Mike shifted his weight from foot to foot, agitated almost into incoherence. "He's still got…"

"He won't do it," Raph speculated. "He wanted to do it right, with witnesses and stuff. He's not gonna go down the beach and do it alone. 'Specially not now that he thinks we'll just do the same." He clapped a hand on Leo's shoulder and squeezed. "Didn't know you had it in you, Leo. Always thought you couldn't bluff…" he trailed off as Leo shifted his gaze to meet Raphael's eyes. Shock darkened his face. He lowered his voice almost to a whisper. "Holy crap…you weren't bluffing at all, were you?"

One side of Leo's mouth twisted up in something that wasn't a smile.

"Oh, jeez," Mike paced away from them across the wide room. "Oh, jeez…you were serious. And so was he! Sensei – !"

"Calmly, Michaelangelo," Splinter came to stand in front of the brothers, watching Donatello's progress for himself. "This isn't over yet."

"What do we do?" Mike fiddled with the chains of his 'chucks, a nervous habit from childhood. "What's next?"

The front door opened. "Helloooo!" Lyss called. "Is it safe to come in?"

Raph's expression darkened. He crossed the room in one swift move, just in time to grab Brian as the man came in. "You!" he shoved Brian up against a wall. "Did you know my brother was gonna do that? Huh? Did you know he was gonna try to off himself?"

"Oh!" Lyss clutched at Raphael's hands where they were wrapped in Brian's jacket lapels, and then at her own head. "Stop it! What's going on here? Gerard!"

"I-I don't…" the man dithered. He, too, seemed torn between defending his son, and making some sort of non-aggressive move.

Honeycutt finally had to step in. "Raphael, please, he can't answer you if he can't breathe!"

Raph eased his weight back. "Wasn't leanin' on him," he muttered sullenly, still glaring at Brian. Only his family could've heard the note of confusion under his voice – plainly he'd expected a bit more resistance than he'd gotten. Or at least a little more fight!

"What does he mean? Where's Don? Is he alright?" Lyss' distress transferred itself to someone else the moment Brian was clear, though she did move to stand between her son and the still-simmering Turtle. "What have you done with him?"

"He's gone for a walk," Mike answered, feigning a casualness he hadn't been able to exhibit only a few moments earlier. "He'll be back in a little bit."

"What's this about killing himself?" Gerard bristled.

It took several attempts to explain. When he'd heard the story, Gerard spun on the professor.

"See? You see? This is exactly what I was afraid of! He was doing just fine, _just fine,_ until they came along! Now he's got some odd ideas about how he needs to kill himself, after all he's been through – you can't possibly think that they can provide a healthy environment for him! It's amazing that he's lived this long, with this kind of life all around him!"

Splinter's tail lashed once. Leo watched it in morbid fascination – their sensei was angrier than Leo could ever remember seeing him. He took a deep breath, and opened his mouth…but what he said caught Leo by surprise. "Michaelangelo – take a blanket out to your brother. He must be cold." Splinter's voice, too, was cold. "Stay with him, until he feels like re-joining us."

"Yes, Sensei," Mike cast a covert look of confusion at Leo before grabbing up a blanket and darting out the back door.

Splinter's tail coiled around again, more slowly, as he got his emotions back under control.

"Wha-what do we do now?" Lyss tried to match Splinter's glare, and failed.

He quirked an eyebrow at her. "I'm waiting for my son to come back. I am not concerned with what you do."

"We haven't yet established that he's still your son, have we?" Gerard half-challenged. The verbal upswing that made it a question robbed his query of any real power to infuriate.

"He is my son," Splinter said carefully. His tail moved in a sinuous curve as he spoke, betraying the Master's abiding anger. "He is my son, now and forever. I may lose him to the foes he faces. I may even lose him to the life you want to give him. But he is, and always will be, my son."

"But he should – " Lyss began.

Splinter turned to Leo and Raph. "My sons. Please join your brothers on the beach. Michaelangelo will need your assistance."

They bowed hastily and left without looking back. They put several yards between themselves and the house before Raph dared to mutter, "God, I'd love to be a fly on the wall for the next round of _that_ fight!"

Mike glanced up at the deliberate noise they made coming across the rocky stretch of beach. "See, Donnie? They're here."

Don didn't glance up. He sat on a stony outcropping just above the high-tide line, right leg held stiffly out in front of him, but his arms wrapped tight around his bent left leg. He wore an expression of mingled horror and grief as he looked sightlessly over the waves. His crutches lay on the beach, clearly abandoned where he'd dropped them when he fell – Leo could tell from the tracks he'd left, even though Mike had puttered over the worst of them in tending to Don.

Mike fiddled with the folds of the blanket, pulling an errant edge up and tucking it into Don's nerveless fingers. "Hey, bro, a little help here? Hold onto the blanket…" he pleaded gently.

The blanket slipped free, again. Mike sighed and sat down on Don's right side. "We haven't exactly had a sparkling conversation," he remarked to the others.

Leo knelt down in front of Don and looked at him carefully. Raph frowned as he sat down on Don's other side, effectively boxing in the unresponsive Turtle. "He gonna be okay?

"Of course," Leo wouldn't allow himself to believe anything else. Later on, it would be time for careful consideration of his brother's abilities. There would be plenty of time to reflect on exactly how much healing Don needed – but not right now. Leo reached out to touch a scar, then hesitated when his brother twisted away from the incoming touch. "He's very strong. He's just getting used to the idea that he's still alive. Aren't you, Don?" His hand went out again, and this time he didn't let Don's flinch deter him. He touched the long scars on the side of his brother's head carefully. "You thought you'd be dead by this point, didn't you? Every waking moment for the last however many weeks, you've been expecting this day. And you really, truly believed you'd be dead now."

Don shuddered all over. His eyes darted wildly, trying to evade Leo's calm gaze.

"I don't think I could have done it," Leo brought his other hand up to gently trace a subtle scar that ran from the corner of Don's mouth down to his jaw, realizing as he did so that it was a chafing scar from the atmospheric converter he'd worn for months_. Even the things that kept him alive left a mark on him!_ "I couldn't've waited, like you did. It takes a lot to nerve yourself up to the point of _seppuku_. I can't imagine what it would take to hold to that level of nerve, for days on end…it'd be so much easier to decide, and then just do it."

Don closed his eyes rather than meet Leo's. The tight-coiled limbs trembled. His mouth opened once, soundlessly, then closed again.

Leo waited patiently. One thumb ran over the ugly mass of scar tissue on the side of Don's head, as if he could read some kind of meaning in the damaged flesh. Raphael moved closer, his eyes dark in an otherwise expressionless face. Mike leaned in on the other side, bringing one arm up to rub slow circles on Don's shell through the thin blanket. The sky overhead began to shift into the pinks and oranges of sunset.

Finally Don gathered himself to speak, even if they had to strain to hear his whisper over the sound of the surf. "Why can't you just let me die?"

"Never," Leo said fiercely; Raph and Mike agreed with him, wordlessly.

"Why?!" Don dropped his head, resting his forehead on his left knee. "Why can't you see – ?"

"Why can't _you_ see it?" Raph broke in. He reached for Don's shoulder, then held back, mindful of hidden injuries. He shifted up onto his knees in his agitation, looming over their huddled brother. "Donnie – you didn't do anything wrong! You were keeping April and Shadow safe – "

"They weren't in any danger!" Don's head whipped up and he stared fiercely at Raph. "They were never in danger at all!"

"But you thought they were!" Raph insisted. He did grab at Don then, fingers clenching in the thin fabric over Don's biceps. He shook him, just a little bit; Leo watched carefully to make sure, but Raph was relatively gentle about it. "Don't you get it? You didn't have any choice, because you didn't know!"

"I should have known!"

"How?" They all said it at the same moment. Don flinched under the triple question. Leo recovered first and went on. "How would you have known it? They kept you drugged more than half the time, they didn't let you get too close to anyone else – hell, Don, they kept you in air you couldn't even breathe! And everyone around you was willing and able to kill you themselves!" He paused to see if his words were having any effect at all. Something flickered in Don's face. Leo took it as a good sign and went on. "Under the circumstances, Donnie, it's amazing that you're alive at all."

There was more he wanted to say. But the enormity of what he'd already said crashed on him and rendered him temporarily speechless – he suddenly saw it, in vivid detail: the utter hopelessness of the months that Don spent in the Triceratons' hands. A quiet part of his mind wondered, _Could I have survived it?_ He wanted to believe that he could have done the same. At the same time, he was certain that he never wanted to put that belief to the test.

Don sighed, then, all of the tension and fight blowing out of him in that breath. Raph let him go, and Don sagged back into his earlier position. He dropped his head onto his knee again.

Leo touched the clenched fingers. "Donnie?"

Mike resumed his slow, comforting circles. Raphael settled back onto the stony ground and leaned on Don slightly, his weight and warmth offered as a kind of comfort equal to the others' touches.

Don mumbled into his knee, "I am just…so tired…"

"Then let us keep watch for a while," Mike urged him. "You don't have to be on guard – we're here. You can sleep."

"You need to sleep," Leo agreed. He touched the bowed head gently. "But not here. Let's get back to the house, where it's warm."

It took all three of them to urge him to his feet. In the end, Raph hauled him up bodily – the expression on Raph's face would've made Leo laugh, if it weren't clearly caused by his brother's shock at how underweight Don had become – and Mike fetched the crutches. Leo wasn't sure Don could make it back to the house at all, and saw his skepticism reflected in the others' faces, but they let Don take the crutches and start his slow trek back under his own power. They walked back with him, close enough to help if needed, far enough away to not hinder otherwise. The last of the sunset faded from the sky, and the stars came out, while they walked. Leo bit back a smile of pride at his brother's dogged determination.

Don made it all the way to the steps that led up to the back porch before he had to stop. "Just need…t' rest f'r minute," he gasped. He sank down onto one of the steps awkwardly.

Leo took the crutches out of his weakening grasp. "Okay, Donnie, just rest…" he watched his brother's eyes droop.

Donatello was too tired to offer much resistance when they picked him up and carried him inside. He fell asleep in the very act of protesting the treatment, and was completely limp when they settled him on the low chaise in the corner of the living room.

"Where is everybody?" Leo looked around the almost-empty room in surprise.

Splinter rose from his meditation position and paced over to the chaise. "Lyss and Gerard have gone to make some sort of argument to their Family Council, and Honeycutt went with them to make his report." He pulled back the blanket far enough to retrieve the tanto that was still bound in Donatello's sash. "I take it we will not be needing this for a while?" He hefted the weapon briefly, then tucked it into his own robes for safekeeping.


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter 19**

_The waters finally cast him up on the shore, and then receded from him. He shivered at the unfamiliar sensation of sand under his cheek, and gasped as he remembered how to breathe. _

_Shadows fell across his burned flesh. Hands took hold of his shaky limbs. Voices murmured to him, words of safety and relief and homecoming, as he was pulled to his feet, no longer a creature of the sea. The sun was so bright that he couldn't see, but had to rely on their guidance to steer him away from the treacherous tides and to put his feet on the path that would take him home. _

"Uhn," Don woke up from the old dream in a rush. He felt strange, and lay there for a long while, trying to put the pieces back together. Light played through the open back door like ribbons, and he was content to simply watch it while his mind caught up to his body. He was warm and comfortable under several layers of blankets, and it seemed like that was enough.

There were shadows moving across the ribbons of light, and he wondered at them. He wondered, too, what had woken him up. He was still so deeply tired that he couldn't imagine moving…but something outside the door drew his attention. He frowned. The noises were familiar, but he couldn't place them, not exactly. _It's the sound of practice from the Arena,_ some gibbering little voice in his head spoke up suddenly.

Don shivered under his blankets for a second, while he wrestled the fear into silence. He wasn't still in the Arena, he wasn't! The sounds were similar to things he'd heard then, yes, but…they were different, too. Familiar in a way that ran deeper than the last year.

_My brothers are practicing,_ he realized in a rush. _It's morning, and they're running through the morning routines…_The sounds lost the menacing edge, then, and became familiar. Almost comforting.

He fumbled for the crutches and crawled out of the piled blankets.

Morning practice was well underway – they'd really let him sleep in. Don peeked around the corner of the door, unaccountably shy and wary, and watched while his brothers moved through a complicated high-level kata. Splinter moved between the three of them, adjusting posture, straightening limbs, and generally offering corrections until the three bodies moved in perfect sync. It was impressive.

A memory of a harsh voice, then – Trell, perhaps, or Occe – offering speculative commentary about the survival odds for all three of them ghosted across his inner ear, and he gasped out loud. Splinter glanced up, frowning.

Don ducked out of sight. He leaned against the door frame, one hand clenching into a fist. _I can't do this,_ he realized. It felt like the floor had vanished from under him, and he was in free-fall. The idea of getting up and joining his brothers for practice – assuming his legs would allow it, which they wouldn't, so Don didn't know why he even speculated about it; there was no way, no way at all, he could handle even a first-level kata right now – paralyzed him. He rubbed the palm of his open hand against the soft fabric of his trousers, trying to wipe away the feel of a sword hilt.

His heart beat too fast, for as little exertion as he'd shown so far that day. _Post-traumatic stress,_ his mind labeled it, but the label didn't help. His stomach twisted in knots.

Brian stumbled out of his room, tousled and sweaty, and made a bee-line for him. "Hey. Hey! It's okay." He laid his hands on Don's shoulders. "I can hear you, y'know. You must be upset."

_Wall,_ Don thought then, evoking his mental barriers half-heartedly. He shook his head. Words failed him, then.

It was like all of the color went out of the world. He didn't quite know what to do anymore. Brian's hands on him felt strange. The crutches felt strange. The sounds through the open door were the only familiar thing in the world, and those same sounds made him shudder.

He went where Brian led him, ate what was put in front of him, washed up and dressed in clean clothes Brian selected for him.

When his brothers finished morning practice and came looking for him, he could barely bring himself to look back at them, they were so bright and vivid against the colorless world.

…

"Figures," Mike grumbled as he waded through the ankle-deep surf. "I can finally be at the beach, out in the open – and it's a cruddy, cold beach."

"Yeah, that sounds like just your luck," Raph agreed. He squinted up at the sun for a second. It made him uneasy to remember that everything around them, everything but the sun itself, was artificial in some way. Honeycutt had explained the creation of HomeStation to them on the long trip, but all Raph really remembered or cared about was the level of fakery required to build it all. It didn't seem right, that something could be so fake and feel so real. "Maybe when we get home…" he trailed off. It also didn't seem right to pretend that there would ever be trips to a warm beach, once they got home.

Mike brightened up anyway. "Gerard told me that the beaches down south are a lot warmer! Maybe we can go there later, when we've got this all sorted out."

Raph scowled and turned away, pretending to work out a kink in his shoulder from practice that morning. He didn't want to think about staying on HomeStation any longer than they had to. The idea of staying there permanently made his skin crawl for some reason he couldn't explain. His deepest impulse was just to round up his family and head for home, now that they had Donatello back.

Reminded, he looked down the beach. If he squinted, he could just make out the tiny, blanket-wrapped figure of his brother, perched on a rocky outcropping far down the beach. In the two days since they'd gotten him back, Don hadn't spoken much. Okay, hell, he hadn't spoken at all. It was like the drive to commit _seppuku_ had been all that kept him going up to that point, and once they'd taken that away from him – once Leo had spiked that effort with a move that Raph had to admire for its cleverness even when it made him shiver – Don didn't know what to do with himself. "Is he gonna be okay?"

"Of course," Mike finally gave up on the unsatisfying surf and slogged his way up to drier land. "He's just gotta get some things settled in his head."

Raphael wasn't so sure. "I don't like it," he started, as they made their way slowly back in their brother's direction. "What's to settle? We're here, he's safe – why can't we get out of here?"

"Don't you want to stay?"

"I dunno," he grimaced. He didn't know exactly how to say it: that the awareness of how fake it all was would always be on his mind, every waking moment, until he wouldn't be able to think about anything else. Lyss and Gerard had explained, in their alternately sugary and stiff ways, all of the opportunities that would be open to the Turtles and Splinter if they stayed, and some of the things they offered sounded…well, they sounded really good, on the surface. Living out in the open, like regular people, for one thing. Chances to travel, to be a part of things, to get whatever educations they wanted…it all seemed like a dream come true, for a family of outcasts who had to hide in the very world that had created them!

But Raphael couldn't stop thinking about how fake it all was.

"I think I want to stay," Mike said quietly.

"I know, Mikey," he sighed. He _did_ know it. Living out in the open, and being able to interact with people, was Mike's oldest and strongest dream. Compared to that, any unease about the artificiality around them seemed kinda petty. And if his brothers stayed, Raph would stay, too. There wasn't any question about that.

"Hey, there's Brian!" Mike waved at the small figure, halfway down the beach between them and Don. "We should talk to him."

"Why?" Raph didn't want to talk to Brian. It was rude, and he knew it, but all of his residual anger at Gerard and Lyss had spilled over onto Brian, and he couldn't bring himself to speak to the man any more than he had to.

Mike rolled his eyes. "Raph. We owe our brother's life to him, for one thing. For another thing, he hasn't done anything to you at all – in fact, he's been a big help with Don, and you know it. For a third thing, if we stay here, he's gonna end up being family, in some way, so you might as well get to know him. Or it's gonna make family dinners kinda awkward."

"Fine," Raph grumped. "But you get to do all of the talking."

"While you just stand there and look menacing? Right…"

Brian glanced between them and Don as they came closer. "Hi, Mike!" he seemed genuinely happy to see at least one of them. "Er, Raph," and wary about seeing the other.

Raph smiled tightly.

"So what's the deal with us staying out here?" Mike began without preamble, in a bright voice. He threw himself down onto the rock next to Brian and arranged himself comfortably, clearly preparing to settle down for a long talk. Raph groaned inwardly, but followed his brother's lead and sat down. "How soon can we start being, y'know, normal members of society?"

"I dunno," Brian sighed. He picked up a pebble and sketched quick lines in the sand next to his perch. "It all depends on the Council. They've got to be satisfied that we won't spill secrets or something."

"What's this deal with a 'Council'?" Raph asked. "Why's everybody always running off to talk to them, and clear things with them?"

Mike shot him an amused look, which Raph ignored. Yeah, he didn't want to talk to Brian or any other member of his crazy family, not really, but this whole thing about a 'Family Council' bugged him.

And apparently he had reason to be bugged. "It's our governing body," Brian shrugged. "Senior members of the Family, people with a lot of experience and skill – they get selected to join the Council. And then they direct everybody else. Not in the everyday stuff," he added hastily. "Just the really important stuff, like who gets to have kids and how many, what to do about financial resources, what kinds of educational needs will the next generation have, that kind of stuff."

"So they're sorta like…parents?" Mike's surprised look was too subtle for Brian to pick up on, but Raphael could see it.

"Super-parents, I guess," Brian sighed. He pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. "I was trying to get away from parents of all types, when I ran away."

"That's how you ended up in the Arena?"

"Yeah. I just wanted to determine my own life, y'know? I wanted to see what was out there, without the filter of Council approval on it." He sighed again. "And here I am after all. This isn't where I thought I'd be. At worst, I figured I'd end up living in an alley on D'Hoonib." He sighed again. "I guess this is better than that, at least…"

"You know anybody on D'Hoonib?" Mike grinned. "'cause that place is pretty rough, if you're used to living like this."

Brian shrugged and uncoiled. "I could probably find a cousin of some kind there."

Mike shook his head. "You'd come home after a while. That place isn't what you're used to."

Brian grinned, but it looked sad. "I didn't think they'd let me come home. Really, I shouldn't be here at all – Family Councils don't ever let anyone come back, once they've left. That's why there's so many humans on D'Hoonib. That's where a lot of HomeStation's exiles end up. And once they're out of Council control, people just…live their own lives. Breed however they want to."

"Exiles?" A flicker of unease crossed Mike's features, and he sat up a little straighter.

"Yeah. HomeStation's run pretty tightly. And some people just can't handle it, and they make waves. Agitate too much, ask too many questions, can't be made happy anywhere in society. And their Family Council will cut them loose. I wanted to be one of those people, but…now I know why they never would send me away. And why they let me back…but they don't quite know what to do with me now." He looked at Raph briefly, before turning back to Mike. "That's why my parents were so desperate to adopt Don. You know that, right? They figured, if they could offer him a permanent home, then I'd stay, too."

"So they're not trying to adopt Don anymore?"

Brian laughed shortly. "Oh, they still would if he wanted that! But they've got a back up plan. They want my grandmother to adopt Splinter now, so Don doesn't have to choose, but he can still stay here."

Raph couldn't help it. He laughed out loud at the idea of someone adopting his father. "A little old lady is gonna become Splinter's mommy?" he crowed.

Mike snickered, but Brian frowned briefly. "My grandmother isn't particularly little," he said stiffly. "Or old, by our standards. She just got selected to the Council two years ago. Besides, people have to be affiliated to a Family somehow, if they're going to stay! We just don't have unaffiliated people. It's not done! So the only alternative would be for him to marry into a Family."

Unbidden, Raph's imagination presented him with an image of Splinter in a tuxedo, standing nervously at an altar while a vague figure in a froufy white dress glided down the aisle. It made him laugh even harder.

"We couldn't – we couldn't be our own Family?" Mike wondered out loud.

Brian got wide-eyed. "Oh. Oh, I don't think so. A Family has to be the result of several generations, and the rest of the Families have to agree to – "

"Guys!"

"Oh, hey, Leo," Brian began.

Leo nodded at the man, as he came in range. He looked slightly grim – Raph tensed up. Mike, too, shifted into a position that would allow him to spring to his feet. "What's wrong?"

"Lyss and Gerard are here again. They say we've got to make a decision about staying here." He glanced down the beach. Don's attention had been caught, and he was struggling to get upright. "I'll go help Donnie. You guys meet me back at the house."

They knew an order when they heard it, of course. But still, Mike and Raph both found themselves dawdling on the trek back, slowing their own steps until Leo and Don caught up.

…

"So today's the day!" Lyss trilled, once everyone was assembled in the little house. "We got the approvals from a variety of Councils, and we're all set to get started integrating you into HomeStation!"

Mike grinned, thrilled and bashful all at once. "They really want us?"

"Of course!" Lyss was so happy she was almost glowing.

"Don," Gerard began. "We have to ask you again – do you want us, Lyss and I, to adopt you?"

Don shook his head, slowly. He didn't look at anyone.

"Well." Gerard sighed. "It's a great disappointment to us, but if it's what you want…Lyss' mother has agreed to adopt Splinter instead, so we can still keep you in the Family that way."

Splinter's ears twitched, and then calmed. Raph tamped down on the urge to laugh out loud.

"It's a formality," Lyss added hastily. "My mother isn't going to suddenly start running your life, not anymore than she does to anyone else, anyway – but at any rate, we'll be siblings! How odd, to realize I have a new brother…"

"Very odd for me as well," Splinter assured her gravely. He glanced back at his sons as if daring them to react in any way, and Raph couldn't help it – he snickered. He tried to smother it in his hand, but caught sight of the laughter lurking in Mike's face and totally lost control of it.

"Wait'll April hears about this," Mike chortled. "Splinter's got a mommy!"

The laughter spread, then. Even Don smiled, his eyes almost meeting those of his brothers, as the humor of it struck them all.

For a few seconds, everything felt good. Almost normal.

And then Gerard had to ruin it for everyone. "Oh, we won't be sending any messages back to Earth," he said primly. "There's no point in it."

"But – April and Casey'll want to know what happened to us," Mike looked at them in surprise. "We can't just vanish like that! They're our family, too."

"Well, we can't keep up that kind of communication between ourselves and Earth. It's just not sensible – Earth is the control group for humans, to see how they change over time without outside influences – "

"We could get them and bring them here!" Mike wasn't ready to concede. "They'd love it here!"

"Well, that's definitely not going to happen," Gerard tried to soften it with a smile. "HomeStation's genetic base has been carefully tended for millennia – we don't go introducing new elements into it randomly!"

"You're adopting us," Mike expression was edging into stubbornness, Raph saw. "We're definitely 'new elements'."

"Yes, but…oh, dear, how to put this? You aren't likely to, uh," Lyss fumbled.

"We won't be marryin' any of the local girls and havin' a passel of babies," Raph translated her hesitation. "Am I right?"

"It's not very likely," Gerard admitted. "But in addition to that, your friends on Earth are…well, they're adult humans in a long-term relationship with a child. It's too late to integrate them into HomeStation, unless we were going to break them up into different Families like we will with you. Under those circumstances, they might be able to be integrated, though they'd never be allowed to breed – "

"What do you mean, you're going to break us up?" Leo's voice cut over the babble.

The silence was awkward as Lyss and Gerard looked at each other.

"Oh, dear. Didn't you tell them?"

"I thought it was obvious…"

"What. Do. You. Mean?" Leo stepped forward.

Gerard cleared his throat. "Well. The five of you obviously represent something new and special for HomeStation. It wouldn't be right for all of you to remain with one Family. We've been speaking to several of our other Families, and there are quite a few likely candidates who are willing to look at you, Leo. And others that are willing to consider Mike, or Raph."

"But not all of us together." Leo turned away, dismissing anything else that the man had to say. Clearly his decision was made.

"You'd split us up?" Mike was horrified.

Splinter bristled. "This was not explained to me."

"Well, we'd keep you with Don, for his emotional continuity, of course, after all he's been through," Lyss looked at Don, who had gone profoundly still in the wake of this new revelation. "You understand, don't you, honey? We can't keep all of you…"

Raph growled, low in his throat. After all of that, these people thought it would be okay to split them up like a litter of puppies?

Don looked around then, and finally, finally, met his brothers' eyes. "I guess that's that, then," he said quietly. He turned carefully and crutched over to them.

"Donatello," Splinter breathed. "My son…if you feel you must stay…"

"No," his voice was so low they almost couldn't hear him.

"But – what about Brian?" Lyss' voice edged upward. "What will happen to him if you – sweetie, you can't just leave us!"

"Yes, he can," Brian spoke up for the first time. He frowned at his parents. "It's not like I'll curl up and die. And he's not happy here, not really."

"But your bond – !"

" – was fun while it lasted," Brian cut in smoothly. "But since we've spent the last month learning how to _not _be in each other's heads, it's obviously not all it's cracked up to be."

"But!" Lyss turned back to Don. "Honey, think about it! If you stay, think of all of the educational opportunities! Your psych profile shows that you'd be a stunning engineer; we could put you through school…" she trailed off then, putting her clasped hands to her mouth and chewing on her thumbnails.

"Donnie," Leo looked at him carefully. He took his brother's shoulders and forced Don to look back at him, too. "Think about it for a minute, okay? We can't stay here…but this could be a great opportunity for you. We'd be happy, if we knew you were safe, and doing something you wanted to do…"

Don looked past them, to Brian, whose face went uncharacteristically unreadable. Something passed between them – Raph could tell, and it made him shiver in distaste – and then one corner of Don's mouth quirked up. He turned back to his brothers.

"Can we go home now?"


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter 20**

Saying goodbye was harder than he thought it would be, though it wasn't the hardest thing Don had to do that day.

He and Brian sat on the wide railing of the back porch while everyone else puttered around inside. Apparently there were Things To Pack, though Don was sure he didn't actually own anything at all, and certainly nothing worth taking home. Everyone in both families seemed intent on giving them some time alone, which was a fine idea in theory, he supposed. The trouble was that there didn't seem to be anything to say.

He cleared his throat self-consciously, and tried anyway. "Thanks…"

Brian waved this off. "The last time you thanked me, you were planning to kill yourself. I didn't know it was a sort of 'final words' thing you were doing." He frowned and looked at his feet. "I guess…these really are the final words, though, aren't they?"

Don glanced at his face, then away. "I really do have to go home."

"When we met, you didn't think you _could _go home," Brian reminded him. "Now you won't think about anything else. Why the change? There's nothing different about you or your life, right this minute, than there was when we were in the hospital."

"I can't explain it to you," it was Don's turn to frown and look away. "I didn't think they would…like me very much, anymore. I figured they would feel I had dishonored our teaching, our family…everything. And I couldn't live with that. I couldn't live without them."

After a long moment to think if over, Brian offered delicately, "That seems…excessively dependent, to me."

If anyone else had said it, Don would have been offended. But it was Brian, and he deserved more consideration. "Maybe it is," he worked it out slowly, measuring the words as he thought. "Maybe we do depend on each other too much, for too many things. But…we're all we've got. And they…they're my bedrock. Without them, I don't know where to take a stand."

"You could have that here, you know. You could build a new family, here, and have more 'bedrock' to base your life on."

"No," Don shook his head. "No, I won't stay here without them, knowing I'd never be a part of their lives again, and I'd never know what's going on with them. I really would rather die, Brian – that wasn't just a dramatic gesture."

Brian sighed. "So…I guess this really is good-bye?"

Don chewed on his bottom lip for a minute while he thought it through. Then: "You could come with us."

Surprise showed in Brian's face, though it didn't leak from his thoughts. "Come with…heh, no. Thanks for the offer, but no. I wanted to get out of this place so I could explore the universe, or at least several of the more interesting corners of it. The idea of permanently locking myself down on one planet – even if it is Earth, the original home-place – gives me the creeps. Besides, they'll never let me go now," and his mood turned morose.

There didn't seem to be anything he could say to make that prospect sound better. Don levered himself carefully off the railing and onto his crutches again. "Well. Thanks. If it weren't for you, I'd've died in the Arena, no matter how that day turned out. I can't ever repay that."

"Don't," Brian frowned. "Don't be all – look, if it weren't for you, I'd be dead in the Arena, too. Or maybe I'd've ended up knifed in an alley somewhere. Or I'd never have had any reason to tap into whatever this is in my brain, even if I hadn't gotten thrown into that hell-hole. So I think we're pretty much even on the whole 'you-saved-my-life' front, okay?" He clapped Don's shoulder. "It's been interesting, knowing you. Just…take care of yourself, okay?"

And that was that. Don turned his attention to the hardest thing he had to do that day: leave. And re-learn to be a member of the family he hadn't seen for more than six months.

…

Lyss cried when she dropped them off at the transport. Gerard looked stiff, as usual. Don suffered through well-meant hugs and almost emotional goodbyes, then turned to the shelter of his family with a tangled mix of emotions that only partially included the sense of relief.

They settled him on a bunk in the room that the four Turtles were meant to share. He was exhausted again, and dozed while the most amazing collection of boxes grew in the center of the room. Apparently Lyss felt that he owned a great deal more than Don had realized, and she had packed it all up for him.

"At least we have something to _do_ this time around," Raph said in sour satisfaction – he was so relieved to be moving that he almost managed to forget how crazy the trip would make him, Don decided. It made him shake a little bit, inside, to realize that he could still read Raphael's mood. Sometimes when he looked at his brothers, it was like looking at strangers, and it hurt to feel that way about them. But it hurt almost as much to have those startling moments when he felt like he really knew them.

He curled up on his side and watched the three of them through half-lidded eyes. _If I could just watch them, and not have them watch me back, life would be good,_ he decided. He wanted to be invisible, to just disappear into the background of their lives and not be noticed or missed. If he could do that, Don was sure he would be okay. Idly, he wondered if he could construct a hunting blind in the lair, so that he could just watch them without being seen. In his drowsy state, it not only made sense, but it seemed perfectly normal.

Unfortunately, he wasn't likely to get his wish.

…

It was three days into the journey home before he could bring himself to sit in on morning practice in even a minimal way – he faked sleep while his brothers tiptoed around their shared room, then crept out long after they'd gone to join Master Splinter in the common area of the ship, forcing himself down the corridor until he was almost in sight of the open space. Then he paused. They couldn't see him, and he couldn't see them, and it was all he could do to stand there and listen.

The sounds were so familiar – ! He was almost comforted by the noises coming from the room: the rough sounds of bodies moving in a limited area, flexing and compressing in ways that he knew all the way down into his bones…but then the sounds changed. His brothers moved into sparring, and suddenly, without warning, his heart was in his throat. He was certain, quite certain, that he was wrong about everything. At any moment, the illusion would fall away, and he would see that he was still in the Arena.

Donatello backed away, trembling, hating himself for it. He retreated down the corridor, back into the Turtles' room, and shivered on his bunk under all the blankets he could find.

_This is stupid!_ he raged at himself. _It's just practice, just morning practice, the same as every other day…_ The trembling only got worse. He tightened his grip on the blankets and waited for Occe to come for him. Or for the panic to kill him – he didn't actually care which happened, just that it stop.

The internal observer pointed out that this was exactly the emotional trauma that Brian's link had prevented him from feeling very strongly. And then it went on to point out that he had voluntarily, and even eagerly, abandoned the one person who could've helped him with this trauma.

_There's got to be another way!_ he argued back. And then he had to laugh at himself, bitterly – not only was he listening to a voice in his head, but was actively _arguing_ with it!

"Clearly, I am losing my mind," he said out loud. He tested that idea for a minute. If he were truly to be insane, what would his family do? Would they lock him up? Kill him? Or would they – a chilling thought – refuse to acknowledge his insanity until it was too late? Would he actually pose a danger to them?

Another memory came to him then, and he moaned and rubbed the backs of his hands harshly against the blankets. "No, no, no…" The images, once started, wouldn't stop. He saw the surprise, the expression of betrayal, the bloody deaths – it all played out for him in exquisite, slow-motion detail.

And it was made all that much harder to bear by the knowledge that the images weren't figments of his imagination, but memories.

…

"My son?"

Pressure on his shell. He pondered it for a second.

"Donatello, come out of there."

_Oh. Yeah. I'm hiding from…something. _He struggled with the thought, even as he allowed himself to be steered out of the huddled mass of blankets in which he found himself.

Splinter turned and made some gesture to someone behind him. Leo and Mike, looking doubtful and worried in equal measure, left the room at the gesture, sealing the door behind them. Don wondered, _What could make them look like that? _He sat up, trembling, and propped himself in the corner of his bunk. _Oh, I guess it was me…_

The Master looked at him carefully. "My son, are you alright?" The familiar voice was gentle, and Don wondered about that, too. Surely it was obvious – ! Surely Sensei could tell, just looking at him, that he was not only crazy but an actual danger to those around him! He didn't deserve such gentleness, not when he was capable of such horrors.

"I killed them all," he blurted, before he could think too much. Though that didn't make any sense at all – he wasn't able to think, not with the images that kept playing in his head. He was mentally out of balance and flailing madly, and he knew it and was powerless to stop it. "Sensei, I killed them all – the last time I was a part of a team, they all ended up dead. I killed them!"

"Calmly, my son," and Splinter was far too soothing for the circumstances, Don thought in something like indignation. "Your brothers are concerned – you didn't answer them when they spoke to you."

"Because I can't be a part of them!" he said, anguished. "I can't! Master, I killed every member of the last team I was on!"

Splinter looked at him askance. "And you are afraid you will do the same to your brothers?"

Relief, of a sort. "Yes," he got out. "Yes. I can't take that chance, I just can't. I made a mistake, a horrible mistake, I should've just committed _seppuku _when I woke up in the hospital, or before you got there – Leo wouldn't've said it if he knew, or if I was gone before you arrived, I made a mistake – "

"Stop."

Just one word, and the conditioning of a lifetime stopped him in his tracks. Don studied the Master, biting his lip to hold in the babble that still threatened to erupt.

Splinter forced his head up and looked in his eyes. "My son, you must be calm. You are still recovering, and the loss of your bond with Brian – "

He moaned and pulled away from Splinter's hand, too devastated to care that he was being rude. "No! No, you don't understand." He brought his arms up, intending to shield his face. "I'm a danger to them…" His eyes fell on the crude tattoos on his hands, and he dropped his arms again, scrubbing the backs of his hands furiously against the blankets. "I killed all of them," he whispered, horrified all over again at the images that played out in his head.

His father studied him in turn, carefully. "It is the distance," he said finally. "Your link with Brian allowed him to siphon some of this trauma off, so you could heal. And now, with this much distance between the two of you, the link is finally broken. He cannot hear your thoughts any longer! But unfortunately, he cannot help you maintain your balance, either. We must re-learn this for ourselves."

"He's really…out of my head?" It should have been a relief – he'd been so dismayed at the idea of anyone, much less a stranger, poking around in his head! But somehow the emotional vertigo was worse than the intrusion.

"I want you to see this," Splinter reached into his robe and pulled out a small grey box. He touched some tiny controls on the side of it, frowned, made some adjustments, and finally set the box down on the bed between them.

A tiny scene formed in the air over the box. Don uncurled from his huddle, entranced by the technology in front of him – was it some kind of holographic projector? How did it work?

And then he realized what he was seeing, and shrank back.

"Calmly," Splinter murmured. He laid one hand in Don's palm, halting his frantic and unconscious attempt to scrape the tattoo off by force.

It was the same event that continued to play, in a cruel and pointless loop, in Donatello's head: the melee for which he'd been tattooed in the first place. The vid was a commercial one, sold in the Arena. The two teams were made up of so many different species from so many different worlds – and sometimes members of the same species were on opposite teams – that the only way they could be differentiated was by the tattooed symbols on their hands. In the vid, these symbols had been added over the head of each combatant, so that viewers could more effectively determine the action when viewing it later. As combatants died, their symbols disappeared from the vid.

"There you are," Splinter pointed to a tiny green figure in the center of the action.

Don shook his head. "No. Not me…Kes."

Splinter looked up at him and hesitated over what he started to say. Finally he nodded and said, "Kes, then."

The combat was bloody. Don curled his fingers up around Splinter's hand, horrified all over again that his father was seeing – had seen – him like that.

"There!" Splinter said suddenly, pointing with his free hand. "Watch that closely."

In the vid, Kes was in the thick of the melee, dealing out violence on all sides. He'd long since lost his namesake blades, and had seized a sword from a fallen enemy. The blade flashed and spun, covered in blood of all colors. Both weapon and wielder were so thoroughly coated that it was impossible to tell for certain what either one looked like under the gore.

To Kes' rear, a Glyson suddenly lunged at the Turtle. His blade flashed as well, as it was aimed as Kes' head.

The tiny figure of Kes turned in the vid, sword coming up just in time to block a blow that would have split his head in two. The two fighters tangled, Kes clearly giving ground in confusion, before deciding that the Glyson was truly a foe, and stepping in to make a quick end of him. The tattoo-symbol above the Glyson's head winked out, signifying his death.

It was the same symbol that Don bore on the backs of his own hands.

"He attacked me first…" he said in wonder.

"Yes," Splinter confirmed. "Your teammate…and he wasn't the only one. Look," and in the vid, another fighter bearing the same symbol also tried a sneak attack on Kes. He came to the same end as the Glyson. "You fought to defend yourself, as you should. Those around you tried to kill you. Under the circumstances, when you could no longer reliably tell ally from enemy, it is no surprise that you struck back."

"They attacked me first," Don repeated, shaken by it. He looked at the back of his free hand. "They were supposed to be on the same side as me…"

Splinter touched another control, and the melee disappeared. He tucked the little box back into his robe. They sat in silence for a long while. Don turned this information over in his head, trying to make it fit into what he remembered of that event.

He had to admit that he didn't really remember much of it at all.

The sense of betrayal…had come from him, not from the others he'd killed.

Something like calm came over him. He nodded to himself, though he wasn't exactly sure why. "Okay," he said finally.

Splinter squeezed his hand. "So you see why I am not worried that you pose a danger to your brothers? They will never turn on you, and you will never turn on them."

"No, of course not," Don agreed in a daze. He felt like someone had gotten into his head and given his brain a good shake; even the internal observer fell silent.

His father waited a few more minutes, then tugged at his hand. "Come. Eat something, and talk to your brothers. Or let them talk to you, if that's what you prefer right now. Come…"

And Don let himself be steered out of the room.

…

The walking casts came off a few days later. That same day, he finally made it into the common area to sit in on – though not participate in – afternoon practice.

Two days later, he was ready to try something new.

"Are you sure about this?" Leo asked, eyes dark with habitual concern.

"No time like the present," Don confirmed. "You don't have to do this, y'know."

"No, no, I want to do it," Leo insisted. "It's just…all of the medical advice and records the Utroms gave us – well, it doesn't say this is a good idea, at this stage of your healing."

"You have medical records and files for me?" Don wondered. He shook the thought off. "Never mind. Look, Leo, these are the same people who said I'd probably never walk again at all, right? And if they were wrong about that, why would you believe them about this?"

Leo sighed, and held out his hand for the crutches.

Don handed them over, balancing his weight carefully on his left leg. He waited while Leo put the crutches out of the way and came back.

And then he shifted his weight and took his first unsupported step forward onto his right leg.

It hurt! But it was a good kind of hurt – the hurt of muscles re-learning how to work, and balance being re-developed. He took one more awkward step forward, and then another, while Leo hovered just at arm's length, ready to catch him if he fell. By the fifth step, he started shaking with the effort, and his brother stepped in to support him.

Together, they walked all the way down the length of the corridor and back.

Don was sweating and shaking with the strain by the time it was over. "Back to bed," Leo said firmly. "No point in overdoing it on the first try."

"Okay, okay," Don conceded. "But I want to see all of these medical records and files you've got. I think it's time I did some analysis of my own."

Leo laid an arm across his shoulders in a one-armed kind of hug, and grinned. "Now I'm sure you're feeling better."

…

April jerked out of a sound sleep and fumbled for the ringing telephone. "Who th'hell is callin' at this hour?" she wondered out loud, without opening her eyes. She didn't need to see the clock to know that it was too late – or too early, as the case might be – to be getting a phone call. She grumbled, "H'lo?" into the receiver, not bothering to hide her annoyance.

"April? I'm sorry – I just realized what time it is," an almost-familiar voice said. Embarrassment colored his tone. She wondered foggily at both the voice and the emotion, before her brain clicked into gear. "We just got home, and Mikey swore you'd want me to call – "

"Donnie?!" she sat bolt upright in the bed as the realization hit her. "Donnie, you're home?"

"Yeah, we just got in a few minutes ago, and I didn't see the clock until you –"

"Don't you move!" she ordered into the handset. "Don't you dare go anywhere at all – I'll be right down."

"April, you don't have to – "

She hung up on him before he could finish his protest. One minute later, and she was dressed and out the door. Casey and Shadow could come along later, when things were settled. But right that moment was all for her, and her months of helpless waiting.

She barreled down the stairs and into the tunnels, grinning like a loon. Halfway to the underground home of her friends, she started laughing. And then she started running and laughing all at once, just for the sheer joy of it.


	21. Chapter 21

Well, here it is: the end of the story. Thank you so much to everyone who read, commented, or added this story to a Favorites list -- it means a lot to me, even if I'm too tongue-tied to respond effectively.

A sequel is already underway, and will soon be posted here.

* * *

**Epilogue**

A breeze blew through the upstairs hall of the old farmhouse just as Raph stepped out of the bathroom after his shower. It carried the scent of honeysuckle from the vines growing up the side of the barn.

The house was quiet for once. April and Casey had gone into town for groceries for the family's long Fourth of July weekend. Shadow was napping on the front porch under Splinter's watchful eye. And the Turtles had scattered to their own pursuits immediately after morning practice. Raphael himself was looking forward to some quality time with the television, a baseball game, and the last two beers in the fridge, during the rare afternoon off.

He stopped short when he stepped into the kitchen. "Thought you were still in the barn, practicing."

Leo didn't turn to look at him. "I came back in when Don decided he'd had enough." He still wore his full gear and that, combined with the way he continued to stare fiercely out the back door at the edge of the forest, set off some quiet alarm bells in Raph's head.

"Somethin' wrong?" Raphael stepped up to see for himself.

Leo shook his head, eyes never leaving the treeline. "No. Not really. It's just…Don went into the woods."

Ah. It explained Leo's tension. It also explained the faint shiver that ran down Raph's spine.

Aloud he said only, "He's gonna be okay. They can't grab him again."

"I know it," Leo frowned. "I know the Triceratons can't get near Earth again, and I know Don's perfectly capable of taking care of himself. It's just…I knew that the _last_ time he went into the woods, too."

It was Raph's turn to frown. In the months since their return home, they'd had to learn to deal with the residual effects, physical and emotional, of Don's captivity. The obvious ones, like his knee and wasted limbs, were actually easiest to deal with – Utrom medical recommendations went a long way toward guiding his physical therapy. It was the rest of it that was hardest to deal with. _How do you fix the inside of somebody's head?_ Raphael wondered, not for the first time.

The nightmares were to be expected. Don had bad ones, too – dreams that made Mike's worst screaming terrors look like playtime, and Mike freely admitted it. Don didn't like to share his nightmares often, though. Raphael thought it was because it was obvious that what he dreamed of were actual events, not made-up figments. Still, they'd expected nightmares, and they knew how to soothe him back into sleep, most nights.

It was the _days_ that surprised them and presented the biggest challenge. Bad days, when Don couldn't eat anything with meat in it, for reasons he refused to explain. Days when he couldn't bring himself to stay in the dojo, but sat outside the door, trembling and glassy-eyed, while his brothers practiced. Days when he couldn't even make it as far as the dojo at all, but sat huddled on his bed for hours, staring blankly into space with the most terrible expression of devastation Raph had ever seen.

On days like those, Raphael wanted to kill someone.

It scared him, though he'd never admit it. Don had survived! Why couldn't he just…be okay? Why couldn't he just focus on his re-developing skills, and the sheer awesomeness of his survival, and just calm down?

He knew it wouldn't do any good to voice these questions out loud. It surprised him to realize that he felt that way, almost as much as it surprised him to realize how much Don's continuing emotional pain was spiraling outward to affect the other members of the family.

Raph glanced at the treeline, then back at Leo. "Well, there's no reason we can't go after him, is there?"

Leo finally broke his fixed stare to look back at Raph. "We can't do that. This is something he needs to do for himself."

Raph looked past Leo at the trees. "Clearly Mikey didn't get the memo." He pointed. Leo whipped his head back around just in time to see their brother's shell vanish into the undergrowth.

"C'mon, Leo," Raph clapped a hand on his brother's shoulder. "You're right. Donnie needs to do this for himself. But he doesn't need to do it _by_ himself, does he." He opened the back door and crossed the porch, knowing that Leo would follow.

Sure enough, Leo caught up with him a second later. "Say that again," he demanded.

"What? Donnie doesn't have to do this by himself – "

"No, the part before that. The part where you said, 'You're right'."

Raph rolled his eyes, and Leo laughed, some of the tension leaking out of his face. They walked through the knee-high grass in companionable silence for a while, before Leo said, "It's been a good couple of days, hasn't it?"

And it _had _been. If Don had bad days, he had good ones, too. Days when he would play hours of video games with whichever brother or brothers dared to take him on. Days when he would fix old appliances for the family homes, or help April with repairs to a vacant apartment. Days when he practiced hard in the morning, lost himself in a book all afternoon, and fell into his bed to sleep soundly through the night. Days when he almost seemed exactly as he had been, a year earlier.

Raph figured that was enough, for now. There were slightly more good days than bad ones, and the increasing hope that there would be mostly good days in the future…and it was enough.

Mike was waiting for them in the clearing. "Could you guys _make_ any more noise when you follow me?" he griped. But he was smiling too much to mean it.

"Thought we'd go to the river," Raph remarked casually.

Mike looked pointedly at the swords Leo still wore. "Uh-huh." Leo just looked at him blandly, and Mike finally snickered. "You guys're as bad as I am." Then he sobered. "I just wanna know he's okay, right? I mean…this is where it was."

"We know, Mike," Leo clapped him on the shoulder. "We know." And they _did_ know. Almost nine months earlier, Mike and Don crossed paths in that very spot – Mike heading away from the river, Don heading toward it – for what had seemed like the last time.

They went down the trail, taking no precautions or special steps for silence at first. As they got closer to the river – without seeing Donatello at all – Raph felt his own heartbeat start to pound harder. For no reason he could admit, he thought, _Not again…_

The river sparkled through the trees.

Mike's breathing was audible, shallow breaths that couldn't possibly be helping him. It was contagious – Leo's shoulders betrayed his tension, too, when Raph glanced back to look at him.

Without a word between them, they all dropped into stealth mode. "Shoulda found him by now," Mike murmured almost soundlessly.

Leo shook his head, not to downplay Mike's worry but in irritation at himself. "Wait." He stopped, and put his fingers to his mouth, blowing a whistle-call that mimicked an owl. It was Don's call. The three of them froze, ears straining for any kind of a response. Raph felt his stomach knot up – it was _exactly_ the way they'd started their search for Don the last time, all those months ago –!

From the tangled undergrowth ahead came the answering whistle.

They crashed through the shrubs, totally heedless of silence.

Don glanced up from the notebook in his lap and grinned, amused and totally unaware of their near-panic on his behalf. He sat on one end of a fallen birch that angled out over the river, smiling at them like it was no big deal. "Jeez, guys, could you _make _any more noise?"

"That's exactly what I said!" Mike cried. He dropped onto the birch next to Don – probably as much to hide his weak-kneed relief as for any other reason, Raph decided – and made a sweeping gesture meant to isolate himself and Don from the others. "But you know how these two are – they've just gotta be dramatic and stuff. They just don't understand subtlety, or finesse –"

"Subtlety and finesse?" Don echoed, smiling. He stood up quickly and stepped away from the fallen tree.

"Yeah, like we do – ack!" the birch, unbalanced under Mike's weight, tipped him into the river. He came up a second later, sputtering indignantly. "Hey!"

"Ya gotta admit, Mike, that took subtlety," Raph propped an elbow up on Don's shoulder and grinned at their sodden brother.

"And finesse," Leo added, stepping up on Don's other side.

Mike splashed water over all three of them. Don squawked and scrambled to protect his notebook. Things degenerated predictably after that, as all of them found some reason to jump, fall, or be pushed into the river.

Later, they lay in a patch of late afternoon sun and let the warm air dry them off. They didn't talk. It was enough just to _be_, Raph reflected. He figured it was as close as he'd ever get to the "peace" that Splinter said meditation should bring.

Eventually Don stirred. He sat up and wrapped his arms around his knees. "It was right here," he said softly. One hand worried at the brace that he still wore around his right knee.

"Here?...oh," Raph looked around reflexively as he realized what Don meant.

"They were on a platform, one of those floating ones. I didn't see them until they were literally on top of me – they just swooped down and grabbed me by the upper edge of my shell," Don laid a hand on the back of his neck, fingering the edge, "and then…"

Realization lit Leo's face. "So _that's_ why we never found any tracks or signs at all!"

"Yeah," Don sighed. "I took a couple of them out, on the way up – thought maybe I could push one of them off the platform and into the river, so at least you'd know – but they hit me with a tranquilizer before I could get the leverage."

Mike sat up then, and looked at Don with worry clear on his face. "You know they can't come back, right?"

Don gave him a tired smile and leaned back on his elbows, relaxing out of his huddle. "I know it, Mike. I know. It's just…I needed to prove it to myself, y'know?"

And they _did_ know, all of them. The Utroms had been furious to know Triceratons had come to Earth for any reason at all. So much of their millennia-long science experiment depended on Earth _not_ coming into contact with other species, especially hostile species, until much later. There had been lengthy discussions and angry speculations and a lot of other talking that Raph didn't care about. What he _did _care about, though, was the result: Utrom patrols were specifically on the alert for any signs of Triceratons coming within a light-year of Earth. They wouldn't – couldn't – get their hands on any of the Turtles again, at least not in the same way. But still…it was one thing to know it, and another thing to really _believe_ that the enemy was a light-year away.

Raph made a mental note to get Don to tell him exactly how long and far away a light-year was. Preferably in miles, so it would make sense…

"So are you finished proving it to yourself for the day?" Leo asked carefully. Raph squinted at Don while waiting for the answer, and saw him as Leo must be seeing him: so much better than he had been the day they got him back, but still not 100 percent.

Don really thought about the question, and then smiled his slow, careful smile. "Yeah. Yeah, I think I'm done for now."

"Let's go back to the house – I could really go for a snack right about now."

"A snack!" Mike leaped to his feet and headed for the path back to the house. "I'll make it!"

"No!" Raph surged up after his running brother. "No peanut butter, Mike – I mean it!" He chased Mike back up the path. Mike eluded him, taunting and laughing, always staying one step ahead. They left the path and ran through the forest, just to keep running.

Somehow they circled around through the trees and came back to the other two just as they left the treeline, and the four of them went home together.

4


End file.
